Display won't start when using KDE+SDDM

[lesnik2137]

So what I have my gentoo installation working in CLI (well, there was some problem with CLI display, so i carried on using SSH) - I described it better in this topic https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1146531.html

What I am bassicaly trying to do, is to enchance my installation with desktop enviroment, and I chose kde-plasma/plasma-meta to do it. I followed these steps: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/SDDM, but when I try to start it, this happens:

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

You are plugging all the bits in and finding that it doesn't work. We need to reduce the problem space to find out why.
Then fix that problem and move onto the next problem, if there is one.
Build on what you know works.

[lesnik2137]

Thank you for your response - it wasn't permissions issue - I performed everything as root from SSH. I will startx now and let you know what happens asap.

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

startx checks that you own the console.
That check will fail if you log in over ssh and X won't start.

I thought you said you fixed the console issue?
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[lesnik2137]

Well, here have a little bit of problem. I have the same issue when it comes to opening terminal or tty locally - I still cannot see anything else than Loading linux... and Loading initramfs... stuff. Anyway, I am already updating my answer with console output of startx.

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

You have a

[lesnik2137]

I am not sure, but up to this point I thought that I had everything done correctly when it came to drivers, I wasn't even considering that possibility, as I followed https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/AMDGPU closeley. But now when I think about it, maybe I actually didn't include some needed option in make menuconfig. I updated my answer with emerge --info output, and .config

[NeddySeagoon]

Its OK to post replies rather than updating and older post.

[lesnik2137]

okey, so I don't entirely understand what you just said, so let me ask for clarification.

the VIDEO_CARDS="amdgpu" refers to what? I know it's currently part of my /etc/portage/make.conf file, is there any problem with it? Then you mentioned adding radeonsi - and again i am not sure what does it mean? is it package i can install with emerge? Update world refers to emerge command @world parameter i belive.

I already have linux-firmware installed

Kernel config - can you let me know how exactly can I remove those 3 RADEON flags without editing file? I am unable to find it in menumakeconfig.
Also i cannot find CONFIG_DRM_AMDGPU.

Thank you in advance.[/quote]

[grknight]

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

VIDEO_CARDS= has a long history. When it was new, it defined the xorg video drivers to be installed and that was all.
Now its used to choose optional parts of mesa too. That was OK in the early days. There wan sill a one to one correspondence between what went into VIDEO_CARDS= and the support that was installed.

More recently, it got messy. The amdgpu xorg driver requires that mesa be built with radeonsi support as amdgpu appears to be a radeonsi card to mesa.

VIDEO_CARDS="amdgpu" is required but its not enough.
To make it work with Xorg

[lesnik2137]

Thank you for your tips! They were helpful now for gathering information, but I am sure I will use it in future as well. I didn't know I can search in make menuconfig, or that VIDEO_CARDS accept multiple arguments

dmesg: https://paste.c-net.org/NailsWired
new kernel: https://paste.c-net.org/CompressCoolers

I recompiled this kernel again and booted into it.

And there still isn't terminal visible on monitor. I needed to SSH again.

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

Your dmesg generates a JSON error here.

SSH in, install wgetpaste
Run

[lesnik2137]

Doing changes in kernel that you mentioned in your last post did it. I saw cli output, and surprisingly my KDE loaded as well. Thank you very much NeddySeagoon for guidance. I feel like 12 years old me, 5 years ago after installing my first ubuntu on separate partition to workaround parental time limit control, or 15 year old me installing debian with custom DE, to learn coding more efficiently. It's only beginning of my adventure with gentoo, and hopefully when I grow enough I will be able to help others here, on this from or maybe on other forums. I will also take your advice about making backups - as soon as I configure my gentoo I am going to save diskimage of it on network drive. Also if you think I should post anything, that may be helpful for someone in the future stumbling upon this thread, let me know.

Regards, lesnik

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

Well done!

We should check that all is well with KDE and your console. Trust but verify :)
Please pastebin the content of your Xorg.0.log and the output of dmesg.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[lesnik2137]

Sure, but since i already have DE on PC i want to perform that action through browser. Let me quickly compile and install it

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

OK :)

One more thing you need to know about Gentoo. Its not really a distro,
Gentoo is the portage package manager and the ::gentoo repo. That's all. Everything else is $UPSTREAM.
Gentoo is a toolkit that you use to design and install your own distro. All Gentoo installs are different.
We all use the same tools to build our own distros.

What this means is that you have to make a lot of the design decisions for your Gentoo that binary distros have already made and hidden for you.
That can be a bit of a shock sometimes.

The good news is that if you don't like your distro design, you can get from where you are to where you want to be by building and removing things.
It's mostly CPU time to do the builds. There is no need to reinstall.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[lesnik2137]

Well, I always considered gentoo to be a distro, since that's what even wikipedia says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_Linux, but when now I think about it, I think you are right. I install any kind of firmware/software I wanted before arriving where I am now. And still I can install/reinstall/uninstall things, and that feels amazing, I see it as opportunity to dive even deeper into computers and stuff. Thank you once again!

Here's dmesg output https://pastebin.com/m1yTNAc8
Xorg.0.log: https://pastebin.com/iLFNhPL9

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

First, dmesg.

[lesnik2137]

Thank you once again for confirmation! I didn't included WIFI support on purpose, as I will probably never use it, I don't even have any wireless NIC. And I think everything is okey with my wired connection. THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN UWU <3

[lesnik2137]

Well, it's me again. I have weird problem, referring to the same setup that this post is all about. When I choose my gentoo from GRUB menu, it boots, I see all the cli output that everything is starting, and then blackscreen with only underscore in top left corner. It seems very werid to me, as I didn't do anything serious when booted - installed basic stuff like firefox, kde kcalc, libre office etc.

I am very suprised by this issue, so please let me know what I am supposed to do

[lesnik2137]

I just thought of something I did before it stopped working. I had to recomplie kernel to make sound work - and it did, I booted again, openned firefox to test sound on youtube. And it worked fine. Then, I decided I want to have libre-office, so I started compiling, and then I stopped emerge command with ctrl+c and decided to install libreoffice -bin instead of compiling everything. Maybe it caused issue somehow... I also added some flags to /etc/portage/make.conf

I can still connect through SSH, I can still see all stuff about loading, after choosing option from GRUB, but then i see just blackscreen with underscore on it. And I cannot go into tty.

[NeddySeagoon]

lesnik2137,

That sounds like it should be when your display manager starts ... or should start.
You didn't describe anything that should affect it.

Are you shutting down properly now or do you still throw away the write cache, rather than flushing caches to disk and unmounting your filesystems properly?
That can cause all sorts of errors.

We need to look at the parts, to see which part isn't working then work on the broken bit.
Take display manager out of the default runlevel and reboot to the shell.

[lesnik2137]

I rebooted using shutdown -r now, and the same happened (except now underscore was blinking for some reason, which i find pretty weird). I tried startx via SSH and it crashed, with I belive the same output.

Here's dmesg: https://paste.c-net.org/CappedMalone
Here are xorg logs: https://paste.c-net.org/TiresomeLonnie

[lesnik2137]

Oh, I forgot to mention but I used sddm as my display manager - https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/SDDM