I've been trying to get Plasma Active working on my Acer Iconia W700.

Specs:

• CPU: Intel i3-3227U @1.90 GHz
  
• RAM: 4GB
  
• Video: Intel HD Graphics 4000
  
• Display: Touch screen, 1920x1080
  
• Storage: eMMC 64GB

I've installed both Kubuntu 13.04 and openSUSE 12.3 on this machine in testing. Both Linux distros install OK as long as I disable secure boot and set it to Legacy BIOS. The only technical issue I've run into with both distros is the external Bluetooth mouse/keyboard not working (not trying to solve the Bluetooth thing here though). Otherwise current Linux distros work fine on this hardware.

On to the problem... Plasma Active.

I've tried Plasma active - the Kubuntu x86 builds and both fail.
- Kubuntu 13.04 Plasma Active build/iso = boots OK, but then garbled graphics after starting to load Plasma Active desktop
- Kubuntu 13.10 Plasma Active build/iso = boots OK, Plasma Active shows the initial desktop graphics, and a wait spinner. The mouse cursor changes to an X and the display switches from the grey Kubuntu wallpaper to a black screen with a few white rectangles. The cursor is responsive to touch/gestures, but remains an X and no change in the display. If left to sit the screen lock starts after 4 minutes, and this is drawn perfectly. I unlock the screen and I'm back to black with white boxes.

I'm not sure how to go about troubleshooting this (I haven't yet tried hooking up an external display - I could try that to see if it makes any difference).... Is this black screen thing something known? Any tips or ideas on where to go to try and get this working?

Edit: I booted it up again, and pressed Ctrl+Alt+F12. There I can see an error message that may be of help here... maybe?

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[drm:intel_cpt_verify_modeset] *Error* mode set failed: Pipe 0 stuck

Edit 2: Corrected CPU type

Can you try disabling compositing, by giving the keypress Alt + Shift + F12?

Disabling compositing wtih Shift+Alt+F12 didn't seem to help any.

I tried booting with nomodeset - no change other than it booted using the old bootsplash style. Once up and running, black screen.

I tried booting with noapic.. no change there either.

Some screen elements are working. For example, if I increase/decrease the volume using the rocker switch on the side, the volume popup shows, and I can see the percentages changing.

If I press power the lock screen is shown, and I can select another user/logoff etc. This screen looks as it should, and behaves normally. (I can logout/reboot etc)

So... no progress yet.

Edit Minor progress... ish. On a whim I pressed Alt+F2, typed "terminal" and pressed Enter. It opened a full screen terminal window with no chrome/decorations. I can interact with the terminal window... anything I launch from CLI opens up full screen with no window borders/chrome/decorations.

Hmm - the lack of decorations indicates KWin is not running. What does running "kwin --replace" give as output?

OK, booted, pressed Alt+F2, typed "terminal" and pressed enter.

This time the terminal window didn't show up immediately. I pressed Alt+Tab and was presented with a window telling me that kwin had crashed with a segfault. I tapped the close button (lower right). and terminal was shown.

kwin --replace gives me:

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kwin --replace
QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave.
QCoreApplication::senPostedEvents: Cannot send posted events for objects in another thread
QCoreApplication::senPostedEvents: Cannot send posted events for objects in another thread
QCoreApplication::senPostedEvents: Cannot send posted events for objects in another thread
QCoreApplication::senPostedEvents: Cannot send posted events for objects in another thread
OpenGL vendor string:                 Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string:              Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile x86/MMX/SSE2
OpeGL version string:                   3.0 Mesa 9.1.4
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
Driver:                                            Intel
GPU class:                                      IvyBridge
OpenGL version:                           3.0
GLSL version:                                 1.30
Mesa version:                                9.1.4
X server version:                            1.14.2
Linux kernel version:                     3.10
Direct rendering:                           yes
Requires strict binding:                no
GLSL shaders:                                yes
Texture NPOT support:                 yes
Virtual Machine                             no

I messed around a bit after this. I can launch any app via CLI, and the window decorations are shown. No desktop is drawn though.

Maybe this is just a result of pulling down and booting the daily build of 13.10 Kubuntu Active?

Small update on this.

I've managed to get Kubuntu Active 13.04 to sort of work. After booting, I'm left with a screen that is non-interlaced (if that's the best way to describe it). Pressing Shift+Alt+F12 to disable compositing sorts out the display, but then no mouse (touch screen doesn't work, and external USB mouse doesn't work... keyboard on teh same hub works OK).

Booted today's 13.10 Kubuntu Active build, and it's the same as previous builds. It boots to a black screen with an X cursor. Disabling compositing has no effect. I can switch to console and control the computer, but... the GUI fails (kwin is not running... no window decorations on any KDE app I launch from CLI).

It certainly seems like the at least part of the Plasma Active startup procedure is not running - which would explain why KWin and Plasma Active itself is not starting up. Can you try monitoring the content of ~/.xsession-errors for the user which Plasma Active is running as?

I just booted it up (LiveCD) again... black screen as usual.
I pressed Shift+Alt+F12 (if I don't do this the next step does weird things)
I pressed Alt+F2 and typed: terminal
The terminal window opens... no window decorations
Type: less .xsession-errors
And... the file is empty (double check with ls -al and yes the file is zero bytes)
I muck around a bit.. check again... nothing.
I've looked through Xorg.log... nothing really looks out of place there either.
I typed: kwin --replace and window decorations are now drawn, but the entire KDE Plasma Active desktop is missing.

Bits are working though. I launched the bluedevil-wizard and paired my BT mouse... discovered that the top left corner hotspot works.

After 20 minutes of poking about still nothing in the logs that seems helpful.

I've been holding off doing a full install... would that really make a dif over running off USB stick?

To my knowledge, it should not do. I suspect there may be a problem in the graphics drivers, which is preventing KWin at least from properly starting.
Perhaps you could try sending a mail to active@kde.org (where the Plasma Active developers co-ordinate) to see if they have any ideas.

Any news on this topic? Current Kubuntu 13.10 daily build is failing on my Iconia W700, just same as you described.