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Cheerful Charlie

Member

Registered: 2017-01-30

Posts: 18  

Start KDE 5 from command line

I installed Devuan 4 and it gave me Xfce.  I then installed KDE plasma from Synaptic.  Shutting down and booting back after configuring KDE up I am booted into Xfce.  Trying to start Plasma from the cli has not worked. What is the canonical way to do this in Devuan?  Googling has buried me in nonsense, none of which has worked.  Most attempts to google this have gotten me "How To Install KDE".

Any help will be much appreciated. Are there any Devuan - KDE gurus here?

Andre4freedom

Member

Registered: 2017-11-15

Posts: 174  

Re: Start KDE 5 from command line

Don't despair:
Use a shell (terminal) and type
sudo tasksel
Then give the right answers and it does the magic for you.
Happy new Year

Cheerful Charlie

Member

Registered: 2017-01-30

Posts: 18  

Re: Start KDE 5 from command line

Nope.  I did this and it hosed my system.  I can no longer as a user startx at all.  I can log in as root and start xfce.  But the browsers I was using there are no longer working.  I had to load FireFox.  And still no way that I know of the start KDE.  This was not a good answer.  When I try to log in and startx as a user, I now get a waiting for x server to shut down message and then a cannot connect to x server error message.

Cheerful Charlie

Member

Registered: 2017-01-30

Posts: 18  

Re: Start KDE 5 from command line

From var.log

Slim: consolekit: open_session
unable to open session
the name org.freedesktop.consolekit was not prvided by any .service files.
slim falling back to PAN session.

This I starts as root from /usr/bin slim.  It runs until I have entered my password and hit enter and crashes.

sddm
Again, as root from /usr/bin/
starting
login interface found
signal received SIGTERM
signal received SIGTERM

.Xauthority not found in /home/user/.  Yes, that does exist.I am stumped.  I can log into xface as root, not as a user.  KDE not at all.

Last edited by Cheerful Charlie (2022-01-02 17:34:46)

Cheerful Charlie

Member

Registered: 2017-01-30

Posts: 18  

Re: Start KDE 5 from command line

Tried an apt-get upgrade sddm.  Still nada.
Afraid to try upgrade silm.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: Start KDE 5 from command line

The right way to do it would have been to un-check xfce and check kde at the tasksel window. Then you would end up with kde, sddm, elogind instead of consolekit and slim. Installing two desktops can be tricky, because some of them have conflicting dependencies.

You can probably fix it by installing elogind and libpam elogind and getting rid of consolekit, slim and any parts of xfce that want to go with it. It might take a few tries and it might be faster to start over.

Maybe

aptitude purge task-xfce-desktop
aptitude reinstall task-kde-desktop

or the equivalent with apt or apt-get if you prefer.

Cheerful Charlie

Member

Registered: 2017-01-30

Posts: 18  

Re: Start KDE 5 from command line

I did in fact tasksel for KDE only.  This is when I got hosed.  I tried again just now. No joy.  I tried apt-get update task-kde-desktop.  Still nothing. I am now running in xfce as root the only way I can load a browser and get online. Tried upgrading pam, apt-get cannot find package.

Cheerful Charlie

Member

Registered: 2017-01-30

Posts: 18  

Re: Start KDE 5 from command line

Apt-get reinstall task-kde-desktop ran but nothing has changed.  So it looks like a reinstall may be the best way out.  #@##!!!