Kubuntu karmic koala kde desktop problem: titlebar missing

[imranka]

Hi All,

I was running kubuntu 7.10 from 2007 till two days back. Thought it quite old, so wanted to upgrade from 7.10 to 9.10, and if I like the latest kde 4 (since I've not used it yet), the plan was to use the lucid lynx. The two phase upgrade from 7.10 -> 8.04 -> 9.10 went seamlessly without any hitch. But now the problem started to occur, and I will point them one by one:

1. While booting, the startup splash screen falls into a console which read "checking battery state ... DONE" and it stays there forever. So, I opened another terminal by ctrl-alt-F1, gave my login id, password, type startx to go into the graphical mode.

Everything looks fine, though I find the new KDE way of changing the keyboard shortcuts ( like ctrl-alt-D to minimize to desktop) or difficulty of assigning keyboard shortcuts to applications, or the maneuvering of the panel, no quick launch space, etc.. a, well, bit difficult. But that another issue.

Now I wanted to shutdown, there is one button say leave and if I click there it shows, "Sleep", "Hibernate", "Switch user", "Logout" etc. I didn't understand whether Logout will actually shut the system down. Now, while shutting down, as expected, it falls to the opened tty1, and from there I had to do a shutdown -h now to actually shut the system down.

2. Now, Iwanted to add some application to the quick launch section (just right to the K- button). After adding them, I messed the panel, I can't see which application I am opening, the minimized state is not showing and the total panel length is reduced. So I searched some ubuntu forums, and removed the .kde folder and restarted the system. The biggest problem started from there, whatever application I open, there is no title bar (the top bar where minimize, maximize, close button is available). And the system hangs completely. I tried the do

kquitapp plasma-desktop

or removing the plasma-* from .kde/config/ folder, but to no avail, the system is getting worser.

3. Also, I noticed the konqueror is crashing while trying the open that.

I have an internal intel graphics card.

Now, please advise what I should do, should I go back to 7.10 again, is there any I can fix the desktop graphics. I have no problem in doing anything in command line to fix the issues.

[reed9]

Moving from 7.10 to 10.04 even incrementally seems like a recipe for disaster. Frankly, while it may be possible to fix all these problems, it would probably be less time consuming to just do a clean install of 10.04.

[imranka]

Well, thanks for the reply.

Now, I should ask, is it worth migrating from 7.10 to 10.04, keeping in mind the ever increasing complexity of kde?

And another question would be, which would be better distro for kde between fedora 12 and debian 5?

[reed9]

I think it's definitely worth running a supported release of whichever distro you use. For Ubuntu, 7.10 reached end of life sometime in 2009.

I run Arch because I like always have up to date packages, but I realize that isn't for everyone. If you are less concerned about being up to date, and want to run the same distro for a long time, I would consider switching to Scientific Linux or CentOS, both RHEL clones.

Fedora only supports releases for ~13 months, one of the shorter cycles out there, so you might not want to go that route. (Fedora 12 will probably reach end of life in early December of this year.)

Debian has a pretty long release cycle as well, so if you're used to Ubuntu, you might prefer Debian as being more similar than an rpm distro. Another option is SimplyMEPIS 8.0, another Debian based distro which still uses KDE 3.5.10.

KDE4 has been rapidly improving and if you like full blown desktop environments, I do think there is a lot to be said for it. I would spend some time using it and see how it goes, giving yourself enough time to make a reasonable decision and whether you like it.

Eventually, KDE3 will become defunct. There is the possibility that a fork will become successful, of course, but whether it's worth having on the KDE3 until such time is something only you can decide.

[imranka]

Wow, I got it all back by purging the kdelibs, removing all configuration file under $HOME directory.

Thanks for your suggestion Reed9.
Now, can you or somebody tell how I can logging into the X server directly?

[reed9]

What do you mean by logging in directly? Not using the login manager, kdm, but doing it from the console?

If so, you can create or edit the file ~/.xinitrc, adding the line

exec startkde

and then typing startx after the console login.

[Segfault]

Logging into X directly is not much fun. You'll have a black screen without any windows or such.
Why you'd like to do that?

[imranka]

Oh, sorry, I think I could not make myself clear. See, while startup, ubuntu shows a splash screen from which it brings the login screen, where we can type the id/password to enter. But in my case, from the splash screen it falls into a terminal where the last line shows as : Checking battery state ... DONE. And it stops there. So, I have to open another terminal to type my id/password and type startx to get into the X.

[reed9]

So KDM is failing to start.

From the console, try restarting it and see if it works.

sudo service kdm restart

I know there used to be a bug, might still be, where kdm would fail if it was set to an invalid theme. Look in /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc and comment out the theme line or change to a theme you know is installed.

Also, you could try reconfiguring kdm

sudo dpkg-reconfigure kdm

[imranka]

Hi Reed9, I checked the /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc file and made the

 UseTheme=true

line to false.

I Also tried the other suggestions like restarting the kdm and dpkg-reconfigure. But the problem still exist.

Now I see, that the console is not stucking at check battery state message , rather its going to the tty1 and asking for the login/password.