[arch-general] Bit of a snag in starting kde3 - No devices detected - driver prob?

[David Rosenstrauch]

David C. Rankin wrote:
> David Rosenstrauch wrote:
>> Try this:
>>
>> * kill the kdm instance (if any)
>> * kill the X instance (if any)
>>
>> You should now be at a command line.
>>
>> Instead of starting everything using "startx", use "/etc/rc.d/kdm start".
>>
>> If that doesn't work, pls post back the xorg log.
>>
>> DR
>>
> 
> With the '3' mod
> 
> 	Damn that is a good looking desktop!! Woohoo! Success!


Nice!!!  Glad to hear you're up and running!


> 	Cool -- somebody else sets menu hiding as default for konsole. One question,
> "how do I get the colors back for the shell?" You know the file colors that
> show different different file types and permissions when you do an 'ls -al'?


Add this to your ~/.bashrc:

alias ls='ls --color=auto'


> 	DR, thanks a million.


No prob.  And glad to hear you're set.  I remember well all the help 
I've gotten here over the years, so I'm just "paying it forward".


> Now, how do I create the permanent config that will
> allow me to boot into runlevel 3, and still access kde when I need it?
> 
> 	Obviously, I could just -- do nothing, and then call "/etc/rc.d/kdm3 start"
> when kde was wanted, but is there a better "Arch preferred" method?
> 
> 	For always booting to kde I understand from your prior help that kdm3 in the
> MODULES in rc.conf is an option


FYI, it goes in DAEMONS, not MODULES.  MODULES is for kernel modules you 
need to load.


> as well as creating runlevels 3 and 5 in
> inittab. I can setup the inittab, but I don't want to have build custom
> runlevels /etc/rc3.d /etc/rc5.d and all the Sxx and Kxx scripts if that can be
> avoided.


Not really sure.  I'd think the options are either put kdm3 in the 
DAEMONS line, which will boot you to X, or take it out, which will boot 
you to the command line.  (Whereby you could then later start kdm3 from 
the command line.)

One thing to keep in mind, which I think you're getting confused by, is 
that the concept of runlevels is largely removed/hidden in Arch.  (See 
here for more details: 
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_boot_process).  So there's 
not really much distinction between runlevel 3 and 5, there's no Sxx and 
Kxx symlinks to set (if you want to start a daemon, just add it to the 
DAEMONS list in rc.conf), etc.  And this is also why I've never really 
needed to mess with inittab.

So if I want to start in what would be the equivalent of runlevel "5", I 
just start kdm3 (or slim) as a daemon, and Arch starts X for me at boot. 
  If I want to start in level "3", I remove the DAEMON entry and Arch 
starts me at a command line.  If I want level "1", I either boot the 
kernel with the "single" parameter, or issue "sudo telinit s" from a 
command line.  I guess, frankly, I never really know or pay attention to 
what runlevel I'm in at any given time with Arch.



> 	Also, why does my kde3 install have the kde4 look and feel?? It has the dull
> grey window decor on all apps?? I'm just wondering if this is a side effect of
> loading k9copy and it pulling in the kde4 runtime base as a dependency. What
> say the gurus?


No idea.  Maybe you need to change the default theme that the KDEMod 
guys chose?  Monkey around in kcontrol a bit.  You're definitely NOT 
stuck with any particular look, obviously.  (Here's mine, if you're 
curious:  http://darose.net/DaroseDesktop.png)


> 	Again, thanks a *lot* for all the hand holding that was required to get me up
> and running with kde. I think most of the problem was due to the stuck kdm
> process that I guess was created when I tried to start kde with ../rc.d/kdm3
> while I had a bad xorg.conf.


NP.  Yeah, when I saw that there was an instance of KDM running while 
you still weren't able to get X working, I thought that was suspicious.


> 	Lastly, are there any Arch Linux specific gui tools I should be aware of? Like
> for package config, etc..


Get to know the AUR, abs, and the makepkg tool.  You'll be using makepkg 
a lot, as there's a pretty sizable number of packages in Arch that the 
devs don't maintain in the "core" or "extra" repos.  In these cases, 
although sometimes it might still be available as a binary package in 
the "community" repo (which is maintained by Arch Trusted Users), more 
often than not it'll be available as a PKGBUILD script in the AUR, in 
which case you'll need to build the package yourself from source using 
"makepkg".  Many packages are available from source only like this, and 
it's really not a big deal to deal with, once you get used to it. (Plus 
once you get comfortable with Arch, you'll probably want to start 
creating your own PKGBUILDs for packages that don't exist yet anywhere 
in Arch.)


As far as other Arch-specific tools, there's really not many.  But I do 
use these from time to time:

netcfg - a command-line utility that takes care of much of the hard work 
of connecting to a network.  You set up a profile for, for example, a 
wifi network, and you can then connect to it with a simple command "sudo 
netcfg <your_wifi_network_profile>"

hwdetect - very useful in auto-detecting the correct kernel modules for 
your hardware.  e.g.  "sudo hwdetect --show-modules"


You probably need to install them; I don't think they come preinstalled:

sudo pacman -S netcfg hwdetect abs fakeroot


> 	Now to -- kick the tires a bit on this Arch Linux kde3 desktop...

Have fun!  Arch is a great distro!  I started using it probably about 6 
years ago, and it's been my main distro ever since!

DR