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Spargeltarzan
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 1:14 pm    Post subject: KDE Plasma Stability Situation Reply with quote

Hello Community!

1-2 years ago I used KDE Plasma but changed to GNOME with extensions because KDE plasma crashed too often (random freezes; sometimes it was able to restart itself and load its open applications)

Now I gave it again a try because I read articles that with KDE 5.14 it became so "rock solid" and lightweight. After two days of usage 3-4hrs/day Plasma crashed 2x (but restored itself), Kwin 1x, 1x after the screen was locked and 1x a freeze when I wanted to shutdown my computer, but I was able to shutdown -h from another tty.

I hoped this would happen like 2x/year. How is the situation for you? Any advice? Maybe I have strange settings?
KDE 5.14.3
No Widgets, 2 panels with a few quick launch icons, a systray and a sys-monitor.
I changed only from Breeze to Breeze Dark and Oxygen style.

Thank you!
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Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
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asturm
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Plasma is running for days here without trouble.
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Marlo
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 4:35 pm    Post subject: Re: KDE Plasma Stability Situation Reply with quote

Mmm Spargeltarzan,
As asturm said. KDE is stable. Maybe you should use this package.accept_keywords?

Ma
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Spargeltarzan
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 8:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hmmm,

I didn't install plasma-meta, but plasma-desktop and 5 meta packages I thought I will use. Should I try plasma-meta?
Marlo, I am not sure what exactly I should try to unmask. Update from stable 5.14.3 to 5.14.4?

Currently I still use the dantrell gnome profile and just installed plasma additionally, because I didn't know what kind of effect it will have to my gnome desktop when I change the profile.

ADD: My plasma-desktop hangs really often when the screen becomes locked, while typing the password the system freezes and I need to reset the PC.
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Spargeltarzan

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Elleni
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Spargeltarzan,

Dantrell provides a plasma & gnome without systemd combined profile (test:default/amd64/fusion/gnome+plasma (stable)), which I use and there are no issues with plasma as you are describing them. Maybe worth a try.
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asturm
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Spargeltarzan wrote:
Should I try plasma-meta?

Yes please. Though it should not affect stability, only functionality.
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msst
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 12:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

Plasma is running for days here without trouble.


Mostly the same here. Issues are in the meantime very minor. It has plasma taken years to get stable, but it nowadays more or less there. It used to be horrible 4-5 years ago...
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asturm
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Spargeltarzan wrote:
Marlo, I am not sure what exactly I should try to unmask. Update from stable 5.14.3 to 5.14.4?

That's the only thing you can upgrade to at this point, all other KDE products are Gentoo keyworded amd64/x86 at their latest available upstream version. I would not search for the issue in KDE Plasma but rather the GPU driver/setup.

Also, some people seem to have a misunderstanding what plasma-meta pulls in - it is *just* the desktop, no applications. Whatever meta-packages you install instead of plasma-meta, they cover a different scope entirely.
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Spargeltarzan
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Elleni wrote:

Dantrell provides a plasma & gnome without systemd combined profile (test:default/amd64/fusion/gnome+plasma (stable)), which I use and there are no issues with plasma as you are describing them. Maybe worth a try.


Okay, I changed the profile to "dantrell-gnome:default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/gnome+plasma", around 30 packages became rebuilt.

This is an extract from world file what I have currently installed from KDE. Can I safely remove k3b, kate, kdenlive and okular from the world file?
Code:

kde-apps/k3b
kde-apps/kate
kde-apps/kdeadmin-meta
kde-apps/kdecore-meta
kde-apps/kdegraphics-meta
kde-apps/kdemultimedia-meta
kde-apps/kdenlive
kde-apps/kdeutils-meta
kde-apps/okular
kde-plasma/plasma-meta


asturm wrote:

Yes please. Though it should not affect stability, only functionality.


The KDE wiki says "The kde-plasma/plasma-meta package provides the full Plasma 5 suite, configured by the following USE flags:" and "Alternatively, kde-plasma/plasma-desktop provides the basic desktop, leaving users free to install only the extra packages they require: ", that's why I became confused when installing plasma-meta.

I didn't install those, because I believe I will not need them. Fine so?
If I need something from those meta-bundles, I would install the specific package.
Code:

kde-apps/kdeaccessibility-meta    Accessibility applications and utilities.
kde-apps/kdeedu-meta    Educational applications and games.
kde-apps/kdegames-meta Standard desktop games.
kde-apps/kdenetwork-meta    Network applications and VNC services.
kde-apps/kdepim-meta    PIM applications such as emailer, addressbook, organizer, etc.
kde-apps/kdesdk-meta    Various development tools.
kde-apps/kdewebdev-meta    Web development tools.

I will now test my computer as much as I can and let you know my results :-D
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Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
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asturm
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 9:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

KDE Plasma is entirely separate from KDE Applications (separate release cycle, separate meta packages unless you use the legacy kde-meta ebuild that only exists because people may still have it in world from KDE SC 4).
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Spargeltarzan
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 11:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello,
Today I still had two freezes and when I wanted to reboot the system it also stuck. I was able to switch to another tty and shutdown -r now.
Regarding my graphics setup, I use the intel onboard graphics card. I had some issues with flickering and changed compositor "tearing" to full repainting. It became better, but still not perfect.

I use an AMD card which I passthrough to a qemu guest, therefore the radeon driver is blacklisted.

Any advice what I could improve?

ADD: I upgraded to 5.14.4 ~amd64 for testing now.
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Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
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franzf
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 7:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I experience both: My laptop is rather stable (well - was, until I updated to Qt-5.12.0), no crashes or hangs. My dad's laptop is mostly stable with occasional plasma crashes - and at least 2 kwin freezes per day :( Change to another TTY and run
Code:
DISPLAY=":0" kwin_x11 --replace &
to restart kwin.
Both systems have an intel SandyBridge CPU with integrated GPU, no dedicated GPUs are installed.
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Spargeltarzan
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for information!

I try to set the right USE flags now and additional I have removed "radeon" from my graphic cards flags because I don't use it in my host anyway.

I still had "-qt4 -qt5 -kde gnome gtk" in my global flags and change it now to "kde gnome gtk qt5". Does someone know, can I compile world with gnome and kde flags? Portage only asked me for libreoffice-bin and libmediaart for a decision, everything else compiles now. (only 17 packages anyway)

ADD: Should I have qt4 in global flags?
I use my freshly compiled system now for 2 hours and again a freeze during a normal mouse scroll. Before it stuck when moving a window. I have only intel driver now, no radeon and I fully cleaned up all unnecessary use flags for single packages and changed the global packages as written above.

I have no other idea any more than trying the official kde profile, what would mean I am going to loose my gnome desktop. When plasma freezes I can always continue in another tty.
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Spargeltarzan

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mike155
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
ADD: Should I have qt4 in global flags?

That USE flag doesn't exist anymore - remove it.

Quote:
and change it now to "kde gnome gtk qt5".

Do you need the USE flag 'gnome' in make.conf? If not: remove it.

My experience: if you want a stable system, remove as many packages and USE flags as possible. Install only packages and define only USE flags that you really need.
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Spargeltarzan
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks,

I believe I don't have many global flags:
USE="aac a52 alsa acpi bash-completion bluetooth bzip2 cups cdda cdr -ck css dbus dri dvb dvd dvdr dts elogind egl encode exif flac ffmpeg git gstreamer gnome gtk hddtemp kde jpeg latex -libav mp3 mp4 mpeg mtp nls ppds pulseaudio qt5 raw scanner ssh sqlite udev wayland X x264"

If you see something unnecessary, I will be grateful

Currently I need my gnome desktop as well, because KDE freezes too often and it can be useful to have a second desktop installed. But I tried to remove "gnome" from the flags, 0 packages are changed.

I wen't through my package.use and reduced to a minimum.
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Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
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asturm
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 12:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Did you ever check dmesg when your desktop froze?
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mike155
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 12:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You didn't tell us that you enabled Wayland in your USE flags! :-)

Do you start KDE/Gnome in Wayland mode? Or do you start them in X mode?
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Yamakuzure
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I test Wayland from time to time with Plasma, but it isn't quite there, yet. The classic X11 setup, however is indeed rock solid. I think my last issues were in 2016...
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Spargeltarzan
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 9:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

asturm wrote:
Did you ever check dmesg when your desktop froze?

Yes, I checked dmesg in another tty, but no relevant errors shown.

Code:

dmesg --level err
[    4.239677] udevd[2404]: Error calling EVIOCSKEYCODE on device node '/dev/input/event21' (scan code 0xc00b8, key code 161): Invalid argument
[    4.239682] udevd[2404]: Error calling EVIOCSKEYCODE on device node '/dev/input

This error is shown on 9 scan codes.

Could there be another log file?


mike155 wrote:

You didn't tell us that you enabled Wayland in your USE flags!

Sorry for the suprise :-D but it's wrong alarm. I have it in my USE flags, because I used it with GNOME. In KDE I realised very quickly it's not ready as Yamakuzure also wrote.

So all tests were in a x11 session.

ADD:
I use gcc 8.2 and kernel 4.19.8. This is the first 4.19 kernel when I switched, previously I stayed on kernel 4.14.

My package.accept keywords. Handbrake pulls in ffmpeg. Poppler because there was a GLSA in the stable version. The system is not booted in Xen. No root on ZFS, I use ZFS for a datapool.

My package.use file. If you see any abnormality please let me know :-)

My Kernel command line:
Code:

linux   /boot/vmlinuz-4.19.8-gentoo root=/dev/sda4 ro  rootfstype=ext4 intel_iommu=on,igfx_off iommu=pt

Iommu is on for gpu passthrough, maybe this is a cause what destabilizes the host. I didn't have an issue in GNOME, but I use it only for days.

ADD: Because I still had 2 freezes today, I changed to official KDE profile for further testing.

UPDATE 17.12.2018:
After migrating to the official profile I still had freezes. I was easily able to produce them when putting load to the machine. (compiling, running virtual machines, copying files, ...) I also looked for errors in /var/log/* but didn't find something suspicious.

I reverted back to the gnome+plasma combined profile and in GNOME without systemd the system runs without any problems (with intel_iommu=on).

As a final test I can only test KDE without iommu to see if this was the cause.
Anyway as I can't figure out what's the problem I will currently stay on GNOME.
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jeffss
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

as you have come so far I would use a trace utility to trace either KDE or KDE related packages (strace) or the kernel (ftrace) and stop tracing either manually or by script upon happening some of those instabilities. Also watch command allows to repeat a command, like a loop, on a specified time, allowing to monitor a couple of system status when combined with some commands; top may be useful for monitoring processes and resources and there might be somethings to deal with dbus issues. About experience on problems with KDE, I once had problem with memory leak on plasma shell but that was after I terminated KDE on a non standard way and also I had problems with widgets either because of the language I used on my desktop or because of using consolekit instead of elogind, not sure now.
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