sddm goes black after any change

Legacy Netrunner 17
1

This is very weird. I tried to replace the default login background. However, any of the following ways I tried will black sddm:

  1. the sddm settings gui application
  2. try to replace login.png in /usr/share/images/netrunner/ to be another png picture
  3. change the picture path in /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze/theme.conf.user

And it seems that there is no way back. Once I black sddm, I have to reinstall the system to bring it back, even if, for example, I change the path (method 3) back to the login.png.

2

Is it OK to replace sddm with lightdm?

3

Yes you can replace sddm with lightdm if you like.
More interesting would be why it is failing. Sddm should write a log file in /var/log. Can you please attach that so we can take a look what might went wrong there.

4

Yea, I actually checked that, but nothing noticeable. I’ll post it next time it fails … (I am experimenting with other dms)

It seems to be a problem with nvidia. It’s a new laptop with only the nvidia card. I google a bit and find several people face the same problem (go black). I tried lxdm and it goes black after 3 seconds…

5

How is lock-screen handled? It seems that the lock is provided by sddm (also for suspend). Any way to completely avoid sddm?

lightdm seems have the best compatibility (and I really like the lightdm-kde-greeter, so kde-feel). So far so good. I’ll run it for some days and see.

6

Lightdm seems to work for session start. But “sleep” now has issue. It can go to sleep, but after recover the screen is black with only a freezed cursor. How do I configure “sleep”?

7

The lock screen is not sddm though it uses the same look.
When it comes to sleep it is basically not configurable. It either works or not.

8

You are right. I cannot get “sleep” to work properly. I believe it is a nvidia issue. So unfortunately, I’ve been using netrunner since the end of crunchbang, and I really like plasma 5.

Right now I have to use xubuntu instead. Wait for my laptop to become “old” enough to be compatible.

9

What about trying a different driver ? Do you have the nvidia proprietary driver installed or do you use the free nouveau drivers?

10

The proprietary. I tried both 352 (latest in the ubuntu repository) and 358 (latest on Nvidia website). I also tried installing kernel 4.3.3.

Nouveau cannot even make it to livecd (have to add nouveau.modeset=0).

The hardware is pretty new. Wireless card isn’t supported by the version of kernel on Debian stable yet. Opensuse and manjaro cannot boot to installation no matter what boot parameters I set … Fedora has problem with UEFI. It seems fine on legacy BIOS, but is not detected when I install it on UEFI. Weird. The other distros have no problem with EFI.

Ubuntu seems to have to best compatibility but unity is a deal breaker. Kubuntu has the same problem as Netrunner. Xubuntu is right now the best “workaround”.