I'll be the first to admit that I don't use Fedora in a conventional way. But it suits me -- or it did until things started misbehaving a few weeks ago. Now I'm finally disgusted enough to write some notes and hope for good advice.
I run F23 with the KDE desktop in what used to be called runlevel 3. I delete rhgb and quiet from /etc/default/grub and start X using startx because I like to see what happens during boot. I hate systems that try to hide what is really happening. Once KDE is running, I use eight desktops with several windows on each one, most of them XTerms with active SSH sessions to other machines. When I leave my desk, I lock the screen but I disable locking based on inactivity. As long as this works, I'm happy.
But it doesn't work reliably for the last few weeks. If I'm away from my desk for more than a few minutes, the lock screen is frozen when I return. I can't unlock. I can switch to a different virtual terminal and kill X, but if I then try to restart X using startx again, it doesn't come up properly. No windows appear, no panels, and neither the keyboard nor the mouse do anything except move the cursor. I have to fall back to rebooting.
When I reboot and startx again, things start up as they should. Except that all my previous windows are on the first desktop, overlapping like crazy. Moving them where they should be is very annoying and tedious. I have to do this at least once per day, sometimes more often. It's not just a matter of rearranging the windows, I also have to re-establish all the SSH sessions. And, of course, any active commands that were running were terminated so I may have some clean-up to do, also.
My machine is completely up-to-date with the latest Fedora. Even the kernel is up-to-date due to the frequent reboots. The F23 was not an upgrade, it was originally installed fresh using the workstation image (but choosing KDE, not Gnome).
On Tue, 2016-06-14 at 18:32 -0700, CLOSE Dave wrote:
When I leave my desk, I lock the screen but I disable locking based on inactivity. As long as this works, I'm happy.
Obvious question: Just a simple screen lock, or is there a screensaver running (some of them were terrible at crashing X)?
I'd try a different screensaver, or screen locking program, just to see if that's the actual cause.
On 06/14/16 09:33 PM, Tim wrote:
When I leave my desk, I lock the screen but I disable locking based on inactivity. As long as this works, I'm happy.
Obvious question: Just a simple screen lock, or is there a screensaver running (some of them were terrible at crashing X)?
I'd try a different screensaver, or screen locking program, just to see if that's the actual cause.
I'm using whatever program is invoked when screen locking is configured using KDE's System Settings (systemsettings5). I'll look into possible alternatives.
But I doubt that is the problem. Last night I left X running without locking the screen, just switching to a different virtual terminal instead to hide the situation. When I switched back to X this morning, the screen was blank except for a cursor and I could not get it working.
On 06/15/16 04:18 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
There have been several threads about session management on the Fedora KDE list. It may be more appropriate to post there.
Thanks. I 'll try that.
On Tue, 2016-06-14 at 18:32 -0700, CLOSE Dave wrote:
When I reboot and startx again, things start up as they should. Except that all my previous windows are on the first desktop, overlapping like crazy. Moving them where they should be is very annoying and tedious.
There have been several threads about session management on the Fedora KDE list. It may be more appropriate to post there.
poc
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CLOSE Dave -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
Tim