kde4 on 8.3 and laptop

[doug at safeport.com]

On Wed, 30 May 2012, Julian H. Stacey wrote:

> Hi,
> Reference:
>> From:		"Brian W." <brian at brianwhalen.net>
>> Date:		Tue, 29 May 2012 22:48:20 -0700
>> Message-id:	<CADV=szWZM0_nL-WO0YQjUWSywDtHSCunNnzLCBhbFP56sraEgg at mail.gmail.com>
>
> "Brian W." wrote:
>> On May 29, 2012 10:28 PM, "Gary Aitken" <freebsd at dreamchaser.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 05/29/12 22:15, Jim Pazarena wrote:
>>>> I had kde3 running just fine on 8.2 on my laptop.
>>>>
>>>> I have now installed 8.3 -and- kde4 on my laptop, and the kde system
>>>> will not work as expected.
>>>>
>>>> when I type kdm (which is at /usr/local/kde4/bin/kdm)
>>>> I get the expected login screen (however the mouse dies), and after I
>> login,
>>>> all I get is a small cli window in the top left corner. The mouse has
>> gone
>>>> dead, and the keyboard doesn't respond, altho there is a prompt in the
>> cli
>>>> window.
>>>>
>>>> All I can do at this point is hold the power button in to reboot.
>>>> If I do not try running "kdm", the normal cli works 100%, the ethernet
>> works,
>>>> and the mouse always seems alive (altho in the cli the mouse is of no
>> value).
>>>>
>>>> Suggestions would be very appreciated.
>>>
>>> I don't know about the mouse dieing.  I'm running 9.0 and I've seen that
>> once or twice when first setting up X.  You don't need to reboot.  Do
> <alt><Fn> to switch to a different vty.  Log in on that vty, do a ps to
>> find the process you used to start kdm, (ps -ax | grep kdm) and kill -TERM
>> that process.  That should get you back to a regular prompt on the original
>> vty.  Do <alt><F1> to go back to that screen.
>>>
>>> Gary
>>
>> Ctr-alt-shift-backspace has also killed many a stuck x session.
>
> & you can also, from another host (perhaps also running X,
> so you still have full convenience/comfort :-) do an
> 	 rlogin or ssh or telnet stuckhost
> & then do
> 	ps -laxww > /tmp/t ; vi /tmp/t
> 		look at the columns PID & PPID (parent of Process ID)
> 	ls -ltr /var/log
> not only to find & kill stuck stuff, but to analyse what is getting stuck,
> failing, & what is called from where, etc.
>
> Cheers,
> Julian

If you have not, look at .xsession-errors, Xorg.0.log, and kdm's log. All this 
can be done via ssh of course and is much easier to do that way with a working 
GUI et all.

Flop the hal setttings, e.g. off if on and vise versa. Also you can try xdm and 
startx to see if you get any different symptoms. My last idea is to use tmw with 
xdm or startx. If you still get the error at least you know its Xorg and not 
kde.