Q4OS Forum

medianjoe

Member

Registered: 2021-10-24

Posts: 28

No X-Windows on reboot

I installed the Trinity version of Gemini (64bit on an intel NUC i7) which went ok, but on a reboot I found myself without the graphical login - command line only. x-windows was restored after doing "startx", but any idea why this has happened?

BonusBrain

Member

Registered: 2015-12-12

Posts: 61

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

This is likely not related to your own issue but I bought three Intel NUC’s for my office and they are all in the bin after less than a year. All suffered from random reboots, USB ports not working and other issues. Two went back under warranty and came back weeks later in the same state. I truly wish I’d searched the forums before making these purchases so if this helps someone else to avoid the same, great! On the other hand I have a Mitsushiba NUC which is a Brazilian made unit using the same Intel board and it’s never given a problem. Seems Intel’s quality control wherever their NUC’s are manufactured is pretty poor.

medianjoe

Member

Registered: 2021-10-24

Posts: 28

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

I haven't had any of the issues you mentioned, although I've only had the unit for a couple of months. It's very small which is why it appealed to me. It came without an OS and I initially installed Linux Mint which was ok, but I would prefer a distro which uses Debian stable. I tried MX, but that wouldn't boot, and I'd heard good things about Q4OS so thought I'd give it a whirl.

I really like Trinity, but it does seem to be quite buggy in some respects. In particular, the task bar seems have a mind of its own, changing height, background color, losing icons and once it even disappeared altogether. I've also notice a couple of other bugs, such as contents not updating automatically when moving files in Konqueror. I'll continue with it for a while before making a decision to stick with it or switch to another environment such as xfce, which I assume can be done? I prefer a fast and light desktop.

medianjoe

Member

Registered: 2021-10-24

Posts: 28

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

When I end the current session (not a reboot) there are some error messages and then I'm back at the command prompt. Doing "startx" takes me back to the Trinity environment. Can anyone tell me which log files I need to look at to find out what's going wrong?

BonusBrain

Member

Registered: 2015-12-12

Posts: 61

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

I haven't had any of the issues you mentioned, although I've only had the unit for a couple of months. It's very small which is why it appealed to me. It came without an OS and I initially installed Linux Mint which was ok, but I would prefer a distro which uses Debian stable. I tried MX, but that wouldn't boot, and I'd heard good things about Q4OS so thought I'd give it a whirl.

I really like Trinity, but it does seem to be quite buggy in some respects. In particular, the task bar seems have a mind of its own, changing height, background color, losing icons and once it even disappeared altogether. I've also notice a couple of other bugs, such as contents not updating automatically when moving files in Konqueror. I'll continue with it for a while before making a decision to stick with it or switch to another environment such as xfce, which I assume can be done? I prefer a fast and light desktop.

It was possible to install Xfce with previous versions of Q4OS but I’m not certain if this applies to the latest release too. In any case from my own experience it would be preferable to pick an OS that includes the DE you want to use by default since logically it will be better maintained and give less problems, especially with system updates. My recommendations for Xfce specific distros would be Freespire or Simply Linux from the Russian ALT family.

https://www.freespire.net/p/downloads.html
https://en.altlinux.org/Simply_Linux_9

That said with an i7 processor you are not short on speed and I would look at Plasma since even on my i3 machines the KDE desktop is plenty fast enough. It’s also the most developed DE currently. Between it and Xfce you’re not going to see much difference. In terms of maximizing speed you would need to stick with Trinity or look at something with say an Openbox option such as BunsenLabs.

https://www.bunsenlabs.org/

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,502

Website

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

Instead of "startx" run in terminal:
$ sudo systemctl status tdm.service
and post the output here.

Next run:
$ sudo systemctl restart tdm.service
and report what happens.

medianjoe

Member

Registered: 2021-10-24

Posts: 28

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

Instead of "startx" run in terminal:
$ sudo systemctl status tdm.service
and post the output here.

Just checking - do want me to reboot or just end the current session before doing this?

medianjoe

Member

Registered: 2021-10-24

Posts: 28

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

@ BonusBrain, I suspect you're right about sticking with the supported DE. I've decided to keep Trinity because it's very simple, intuitive and has an old school charm about it which I like. It's also VERY snappy on my machine. Thanks for the info.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,502

Website

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

Better to reboot

medianjoe

Member

Registered: 2021-10-24

Posts: 28

Re: No X-Windows on reboot

hmmm... after reboot the graphical login came up as it should have done, although I had done nothing since the last reboot when the command line appeared. Here is the output from the first command :

● tdm.service - Trinity Display Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/tdm.service; indirect; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2021-10-26 14:26:28 BST; 3min 34s ago
       Docs: man:tdm-trinity(1)
    Process: 1412 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c [ "$(basename $(cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager 2>/dev/null))" = "tdm" ] (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 1415 (tdm)
      Tasks: 12 (limit: 9148)
     Memory: 88.2M
        CPU: 6.947s
     CGroup: /system.slice/tdm.service
             ├─1415 /opt/trinity/bin/tdm
             ├─1417 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg -br -deferglyphs 16 -nolisten tcp :0 vt7 -auth /var/run/xauth/A:0-e3r7db
             └─1434 /opt/trinity/bin/tdekbdledsync

Oct 26 14:26:28 intel systemd[1]: Starting Trinity Display Manager...
Oct 26 14:26:28 intel systemd[1]: Started Trinity Display Manager.
Oct 26 14:26:39 intel [1431]: pam_unix(tdm-trinity:session): session opened for user jules(uid=1000) by (uid=0)

After doing the second command I was logged out and then the graphical login appeared again. So everything seems to be as it should be. Thanks anyway guys.