Hi all - I'm a first-timer here, so I hope you'll be gentle with me....

I'm running Kubuntu 8.10 and have just tried KDE 4.2 Beta2. No luck, unfortunately, as I was unable to get past the splash-screen (the small window with the icons that gradually appear).

I want to log a bug-report for this, but to do a good one, I'll need a stack trace. I've done one for Konqueror in the past, but how do I do one for the desktop (given that I can't actually even get there?). I select "KDE" from the GDM "sessions" menu at login, so there must be a way of maybe starting KDE from the command-line and getting a stack trace from there. If someone can let me know how to do that, that'll be great!

Very many thanks in advance.... bye for now -
- latte

Did you try the same with a fresh user account?

It can be a problem with some old config files from the default KDE4.1.3 install of Kubuntu.

neverendingo wrote:Did you try the same with a fresh user account?

It can be a problem with some old config files from the default KDE4.1.3 install of Kubuntu.

Hi neverendingo - thanks for that!

No, I haven't tried that, so I'll create a new user account and see how that goes.
Thanks very much for your help!
- latte

If that does not work, enter into a tty1-6 -- Ctrl + Alt+ F1 (through F6) and type in:

Code: Select all

startkde

See if you get any error message.

LinuxIsInnovation wrote:If that does not work, enter into a tty1-6 -- Ctrl + Alt+ F1 (through F6) and type in:

Code: Select all

startkde

See if you get any error message.

Hi - thanks very much for that! Ok, with my basic-but-useful knowledge of gdb, I should now have enough to get a useful stack-trace...
Thanks again - bye for now -
*** Update ***
Hi again all -
I've been trying to get the "startkde" shell script to run from the command-prompt (accessed via Ctrl-Alt-F1 as shown above). However, I've had no luck - that script is just determined not to run....
This is what I do -
a) When the graphical login window appears, I type Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to the command-prompt.
b) I type "gdb" to start the debugger
c) In the debugger, if I type "shell startkde" I get -
"$DISPLAY is not set or cannot connect to the X server"
If I type "file startkde" I get -
"/usr/bin/startkde" : not in executable format: File format not recognized"
I also get that message if I type "exec-file startkde"
d) If I exit the debugger and try to run "startkde" from the command-line, I get -
"$DISPLAY is not set or cannot connect to the X server"

Sigh... around and around in circles....

I'm really keen to help get this bug nailed (it's a nasty one, given that I can't get to the KDE 4.2 desktop), but given that I can't get this startkde script to run, I may have to leave it. So, does anyone have any ideas for a command that might actually get startkde to run? Something that I haven't tried above? Very many thanks in advance.....
- latte

The reason you are getting that error message(s) is because:

1. startkde is a script, not an executable. Thus it cannot be used in gdb
2. startkde is also not capable of launching an X server, only attaching itself to an already running one.

The solution to problem 2 is to execute it from an XTerm session, which can usually be reached from "Failsafe" in KDM. not sure about 1.

bcooksley wrote:The reason you are getting that error message(s) is because:

1. startkde is a script, not an executable. Thus it cannot be used in gdb
2. startkde is also not capable of launching an X server, only attaching itself to an already running one.

The solution to problem 2 is to execute it from an XTerm session, which can usually be reached from "Failsafe" in KDM. not sure about 1.

Ahhh... ok - thanks very much for that, bcooksley!
Ok, I'll have a go at running startkde from a failsafe session. Will do that tomorrow as it's getting late here in NZ.....
Thanks again - bye for now -
- latte