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no GUI after upgrade to buster

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djk44883
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#41 Post by djk44883 »

Here are other issues similar to your, using lightdm... see if there's a clue:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 41#p704874
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 83#p700796

serandrzej
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#42 Post by serandrzej »

djk44883 wrote:Here are other issues similar to your, using lightdm... see if there's a clue:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 41#p704874
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 83#p700796
didn't work for me.
however, I installed gdm3 - now I can see graphical greeting screen but when I try to log on as my user, nothing happens, the screen is back to user lists. gdm3 cannot start X either.
startx again "is unable to connect to X server: Connection refused'

since GUI, as it seems, is able to work, if only for gdm3 greeting screen, Im wondering maybe I should edit some boot files and indicate home partition as the one system should boot into, instead of root partition.
that is, replace the line (somewhere)
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 root=UUID=30a48c54...761ce0 ro quiet
with
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 home=UUID=9f475ba3..e4a720 ro quiet

djk44883
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#43 Post by djk44883 »

serandrzej wrote:since GUI, as it seems, is able to work, if only for gdm3 greeting screen, Im wondering maybe I should edit some boot files and indicate home partition as the one system should boot into, instead of root partition.
You system should boot should boot into an environment, not a partition. Filesystems or partitions are mounted during the booting process.
serandrzej wrote: Im wondering maybe I should edit some boot files and indicate home partition as the one system should boot into, instead of root partition.
that is, replace the line (somewhere)
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 root=UUID=30a48c54...761ce0 ro quiet
with
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 home=UUID=9f475ba3..e4a720 ro quiet
I'm wondering WTF? If you found some option to add to the kernel line to "boot into /home" then you can declare victory.

serandrzej
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#44 Post by serandrzej »

djk44883 wrote: You system should boot should boot into an environment, not a partition.
yes, sorry for my awkward use of technical terms, I have background in linguistics and literature, so I'm rather a laymen when it comes to IT. :)
djk44883 wrote:
serandrzej wrote: Im wondering maybe I should edit some boot files and indicate home partition as the one system should boot into, instead of root partition.
that is, replace the line (somewhere)
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 root=UUID=30a48c54...761ce0 ro quiet
with
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 home=UUID=9f475ba3..e4a720 ro quiet
I'm wondering WTF? If you found some option to add to the kernel line to "boot into /home" then you can declare victory.
I wouldn't like to get ahead of myself and prematurely declare victory. If I recall correctly, on stretch it was always home partition that was mounted, not root, so I was just hypothesising on a possibility of instructing buster to boot into graphical environment by placing this entry "BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 home=UUID=9f475ba3..e4a720 ro quiet" in a file which controls booting. The question is whether it would be workable, and besides, I have not a foggiest idea which file(s) I should put this entry in. any tips where such instruction could be placed? grub.cfg?

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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#45 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

djk44883 wrote:But if you needed proprietary firmware, installer should have made it known.
The installer doesn't warn about firmware requirements for video cards.

@OP: try installing the firmware-linux-nonfree metapackage.
OP wrote:I was just hypothesising on a possibility of instructing buster to boot into graphical environment by placing this entry "BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 home=UUID=9f475ba3..e4a720 ro quiet" in a file which controls booting
The kernel doesn't understand home= as a command line parameter and anyway it would make no sense to only mount /home
deadbang

serandrzej
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#46 Post by serandrzej »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote: @OP: try installing the firmware-linux-nonfree metapackage..
how do I install the metapackage? I ran this command with this result:

Code: Select all

apt-cache search | grep metapackage
E: You must give at least one search pattern
or

Code: Select all

sudo apt-cache search | grep firmware-linux-nonfree
E: You must give at least one search pattern
Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
OP wrote:I was just hypothesising on a possibility of instructing buster to boot into graphical environment by placing this entry "BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.19.0-5-amd64 home=UUID=9f475ba3..e4a720 ro quiet" in a file which controls booting
The kernel doesn't understand home= as a command line parameter and anyway it would make no sense to only mount /home
that's disappointing. I thought as simple idea as replacing an entry in some file(s), would fix the problem. and note, graphical GUI appears when I try to log in using gdm3, but that's it, after typing login and password I'm just returned to greeter.

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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#47 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

serandrzej wrote:how do I install the metapackage?
The same way you would install any package, see apt(8) for the details.
deadbang

serandrzej
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#48 Post by serandrzej »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote: The same way you would install any package, see apt(8) for the details.
yes, but what do I instruct apt to install? I tried this

Code: Select all

apt install firmware-linux-nonfree-metapackage
the response was

Code: Select all

E: Unable to locate package firmware-linux-nonfree-metapackage

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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#49 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

Code: Select all

# apt install firmware-linux-nonfree
deadbang

serandrzej
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#50 Post by serandrzej »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Code: Select all

# apt install firmware-linux-nonfree
after this command some packages were installed but no progess with the issue, still no GUI.

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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#51 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

deadbang

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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#52 Post by Dai_trying »

Another thing to check would be having enough free space on your system partitions, I've had occasion where free space was used and the system could not log-in to GUI, as this was an upgrade it is possible to have used up more space than expected.

To check this you can log-in a fresh tty (ctrl+atl+F1) and check free space (I use df -h), if anything looks to high (Use%) then free up some space and try again (ctrl+alt+F7 to return to GUI login).

serandrzej
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#53 Post by serandrzej »

Dai_trying wrote:Another thing to check would be having enough free space on your system partitions, I've had occasion where free space was used and the system could not log-in to GUI, as this was an upgrade it is possible to have used up more space than expected.

To check this you can log-in a fresh tty (ctrl+atl+F1) and check free space (I use df -h)
df -h returns nothing worrying, most used partition is /home at just 77%
oh, and I've just remembered, the problem of not enough space occurred after first regular dist-upgrade from CLI. then I started to reinstall the system from CD and ended up in no GUI.
Last edited by serandrzej on 2019-08-25 18:37, edited 3 times in total.

serandrzej
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#54 Post by serandrzej »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:Try the Liquorix kernel.

I can't seem to manage to type in correctly the debian prerequisits. I get response ">" and that's it. tried to copy the command via nano but just can't find a way how to copy and paste in text mode.

djk44883
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#55 Post by djk44883 »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
djk44883 wrote:But if you needed proprietary firmware, installer should have made it known.
The installer doesn't warn about firmware requirements for video cards.

@OP: try installing the firmware-linux-nonfree metapackage.
...because you don't actually need a proprietary drive for basic video function. While installing, I was informed I needed a driver for wifi - basic function. Video functions, basically, without special drivers -- how else could you turn it on and see any thing.

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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#56 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

djk44883 wrote:...because you don't actually need a proprietary drive for basic video function. While installing, I was informed I needed a driver for wifi - basic function. Video functions, basically, without special drivers -- how else could you turn it on and see any thing.
My AMD graphics chip will not display the desktop at all unless the firmware is installed. We have had threads recently from a few other users suffering the same issue.
deadbang

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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#57 Post by djk44883 »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
djk44883 wrote:...because you don't actually need a proprietary drive for basic video function. While installing, I was informed I needed a driver for wifi - basic function. Video functions, basically, without special drivers -- how else could you turn it on and see any thing.
My AMD graphics chip will not display the desktop at all unless the firmware is installed. We have had threads recently from a few other users suffering the same issue.
Back to my previous post about the installer and firmware:
Debian buster -- Installation Guide
2.1.5. Graphics Hardware Support
Whether advanced graphics card features such as 3D-hardware acceleration or hardware-accelerated video are available, depends on the actual graphics hardware used in the system and in some cases on the installation of additional “firmware” images (see Section 2.2, “Devices Requiring Firmware”).

On modern PCs, having a graphical display usually works out of the box. In very few cases there have been reports about hardware on which installation of additional graphics card firmware was required even for basic graphics support, but these have been rare exceptions. For quite a lot of hardware, 3D acceleration also works well out of the box, but there is still some hardware that needs binary blobs to work well.
2.2. Devices Requiring Firmware
With many graphics cards, basic functionality is available without additional firmware, but the use of advanced features requires an appropriate firmware file to be installed in the system.
If the debian-installer prompts for a firmware file and you do not have this firmware file available or do not want to install a non-free firmware file on your system, you can try to proceed without loading the firmware. There are several cases where a driver prompts for additional firmware because it may be needed under certain circumstances, but the device does work without it on most systems (this e.g. happens with certain network cards using the tg3 driver).
So, you shouldn't need firmware, but if you do - installer prompts for you to install it. That's what we get from Debian. This not working for you or others... makes this documentation obsolete?

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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#58 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

serandrzej wrote:and note, graphical GUI appears when I try to log in using gdm3, but that's it, after typing login and password I'm just returned to greeter.
This doesn't match your thread title, and it looks like you are trying to solve the wrong problem.
You DO have a working gui, what you have is a failure to log in to your upgraded profile.
Make a new user and try logging in to that.
AdrianTM wrote:There's no hacker in my grandma...

serandrzej
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#59 Post by serandrzej »

dilberts_left_nut wrote: You DO have a working gui, what you have is a failure to log in to your upgraded profile.
Make a new user and try logging in to that.


logging with a new user, via gdm3, fails as well. it returns me back to greeting screen, just as it does when I try to log in as my old user

Chrisdb
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Re: no GUI after upgrade to buster

#60 Post by Chrisdb »

Did you install the 'firmware-linux' package (mentioned by 'Head_on_a_Stick')?

Also, can you post output of the contents of 'Xorg.0.log' again?

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