[SOLVED] Desktop Switch to MATE
Posted: 2019/05/10 16:40:38
This isn't an issue I need help with any more, just documenting this in case it helps someone in future since information for much of what I've tried here was thin on the ground.
I wanted to switch over to use a different desktop. I was previously using KDE and wanted to try out MATE. One issue here was that I was using CentOS 6 and it was woefully out of date since I'd not used it in ages. So I had a few steps:
right? Well yes, but actually no...
After installing X server and running then I found that running sddm did not actually boot to sddm! So I headed to the log files for Xorg for information. While I scrolled down I noted a number of drivers not being loaded. These, primarily, were:
When I saw the output, I saw things that made sense. fbdev and vesa were namechecked right there but there were extras. For example, in place of radeon, I found ati. So I installed that too. Synaptics, the tech used for touchpads, was there too and I saw no mention of pointing devices within the log. So that went in too. But some, importantly the keyboard drivers, were not included
So I began my adventure. A 2 day stint where I learned much about CentOS and myself... Some useful things:
and used that. On running this, it wasn't immediately clear what I was looking for so I went through a couple of events and tried pressing a few keys. I found the device and took note. The reason I took note was that I remembered a config file in I looked up the Xorg documentation and found the "InputClass" section. This led me here https://www.x.org/releases/current/doc/ ... l#heading9 . From there, I could see the format of the config I'd require. Some things were fine in that the Identifier, MatchIsKeyboard and Option were all defined but nothing was set to actually catch the device. So, I added it.
So then I tried to start sddm again. Whilst I could use the mouse (thanks to synaptics drivers being installed) there was no keyboard. So what gives? Back to Xorg.0.log... This time, I see the keyboard being detected since the actual device name (AT Translated Set 2 keyboard) is there in the logs but it's still not working. So this isn't a detection issue it's a driver one. With that in mind,I had a look at the other drivers available for X11. This lead me to find evdev. I headed for Google and found that this was an important part of Xorg but evidently was not installed. yum proved it when I ran So I installed that. But I was still no further forward!
So I looked for everything x11 and found xkb-utils. I saw this mentioned in the logs so didn't think much of it. Apparently it was needed! I installed them using
That fixed it.
I should stress, this isn't the first time I've ever switched desktops. This just happened to be problematic. There was so little information on it, I was really clutching but we got there in the end. Is it just me that had these kinds of problems?
I wanted to switch over to use a different desktop. I was previously using KDE and wanted to try out MATE. One issue here was that I was using CentOS 6 and it was woefully out of date since I'd not used it in ages. So I had a few steps:
- I needed to update.
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yum update
- I needed to remove the old desktop and window manager
- I needed to install the new desktop and manager
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yum install
After installing X server and running
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yum groupinstall "MATE Desktop"
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yum install sddm
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less /var/log/Xorg.0.log
- fbdev
- vesa
- radeon
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yum search xorg-x11-drv
So I began my adventure. A 2 day stint where I learned much about CentOS and myself... Some useful things:
- There is a --timed-exit in gdm which proved quite useful when I tried switching back to gdm to see if that fixed it. This stops gdm after however many seconds you specify.
- Ctrl+Alt+Fx (e.g. F3,F5) switches runlevels whilst in a UI. Not handy when your keyboard isn't working of course...
- You can boot to multi-user console by changing the symbolic link in If you amend this to link to
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/etc/systemd/system/default.target
then you'll boot to console next time.Code: Select all
/usr/lib/systemd/system/multi-user.target
- Going hand in hand with the last point, you can boot to single user mode by editing the boot command. Change ro to rw and add init=/sysroot/bin/sh. I used https://vpsie.com/knowledge-base/boot-s ... hel-vpsie/.
- is a bug which appears to still be at large. I was unable to resolve that bug which is what lead to using SDDM
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GLib: g_hash_table_find: assertion 'version == hash_table->version'
- startx does not run on it's own, even when you stick an ampersand on the end. You have to spawn it with your display manager (e.g. gdm, sddm etc)
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evtest
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/dev/input/event3
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/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-kayboard.conf
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MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event3"
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yum list installed | grep evdev
So I looked for everything x11 and found xkb-utils. I saw this mentioned in the logs so didn't think much of it. Apparently it was needed! I installed them using
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yum install xorg-x11-xkb*
I should stress, this isn't the first time I've ever switched desktops. This just happened to be problematic. There was so little information on it, I was really clutching but we got there in the end. Is it just me that had these kinds of problems?