ArchLinux GNOME update problem

Software & Operating Systems Linux
, ,
1

When I update Archlinux my Virtualbox VM is unable to start GNOME (after the update). Before installing the updates, I was notified that a few gnome packages have changed (e.g.: gnome-extras moved to extras/gnome-extras or something like that). When I confirm and proceed the VM seems to be unable to start GNOME, it tries a jew times and stops.

I know right now this isn’t much to go on, but I’m currently not at this PC and I decided to go ahead and open the thread anyway. I figured (hoped) someone might know what’s wrong or had a similar problem. In any case, tomorrow I can go ahead and post my X11 log.

Thanks in advance :wink:

2

Install a different DE for the time being, wait for a gnome patch in a week, purge gnome, reinstall gnome.

1 Like
3

Do you just boot into a console session?

If so try launching an X11 interface with startx and from there see if you can launch gnome with gnome-session.

If that doesn’t get you anywhere… you probably have an older version of gnome in your pacman cache. You could fall back to that in the meantime.

This also more-than-often solves the problem.

1 Like
4

Thanks for your replies - both of you.

Yeah I’m able to boot into console, but startx doesn’t work either. However, I’m currently trying to updating my installed packages one at a time to find the culprit. (Previously, I excluded GNOME, but apparently GNOME does not cause this issue. It might be gdm, libgdm, virtualbox-guest-modules-arch, or mesa. But I’m not sure. ) I’ll update this thread with the corresponding log files once I’ve found the culprit.

Possible culprtis (e.g. currently not-updated packages) are:

(see below)
5

So the culprits are:

gnome-desktop-1:3.28.0-1  
gnome-session-3.28.0-2
gnome-settings-daemon-3.28.0+4+gef32315a-1  
gnome-shell-3.28.0-1
mutter-3.28.0-1  
pango-1.42.0-1

startx doesn’t work either, I’ve uploaded the Xorg.log file to pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/EdJ3vemt

@FaunCB and @BigBlueHouse: Any ideas?

6

Check your dmesg… what does it say?

1 Like
7

Nothing standing out to me in your Xorfg.log I’m afraid.

Hopefully you have some errors logged here that will point to what is wrong.

1 Like
8

if it revolves around picking starting gdm or anything kernel related like that it will show up in dmesg.

1 Like
9

Gnomes a pile of trash. I have it crash like 3-5 times a day. Use something else, or purge and reinstall.

1 Like
10

I’ve been away over the easter holidays but thanks for your replies. Below is a link to my dmseg output:
https://pastebin.com/Lf2YEJP6

The only errors I discovered were amd64_edac_mod: Unknown symbol errors, but I doubt (?) that they are related…

@Kat gdm doesn’t show up in the output…

@FaunCB I might as well just try that next. When I last tried to purge gnome though pacman -Rns gnome it complained about dependencies and didn’t let me do it though. But I’ll try again.

11

Honestly… this kind of thing should be something to expect with arch and something you will have to deal with on occasion. It’s not necessary a gnome problem.

12

FYI If any none is running a AMD or ATI FirePro Professional add in GPU the amdgpu-pro driver installation package provided on the amd/ati linux Download page is antiquated in that it still requires some legacy i386 package.i386 multi-architecture support being abandon in favor of the pure x86_64 support dy most Linux distributions you might want to consider NVidia asve more of a grasp on correct implementation and coordination driver development and deployment wise in the Linux community.

13

I went ahead and purged Gnome, rebooted and installed it again and the problem persists… Any other ideas?