kdm, black screen

[fesken]

Encountered a problem after doing a system update. Kdm seems to shut down the monitor instead of showing the login window. If i type my password followed by enter, i get logged in so it seems the actual login is running (and the kde plasma desktop is shown without problems). This is on a laptop btw. If anyone could point me in any direction regarding troubleshooting i would be most grateful! (I have tried changing the login theme and such but it doesnt seem to matter.) I have no idea on how to continue researching this problem since i get no good google hits.

[dcharlespyle]

Encountered a problem after doing a system update. Kdm seems to shut down the monitor instead of showing the login window. If i type my password followed by enter, i get logged in so it seems the actual login is running (and the kde plasma desktop is shown without problems). This is on a laptop btw. If anyone could point me in any direction regarding troubleshooting i would be most grateful! (I have tried changing the login theme and such but it doesnt seem to matter.) I have no idea on how to continue researching this problem since i get no good google hits.

Are you using proprietary drivers or just FOSS? Nvidia, AMD, or Intel? Do you recall what updates were available and were installed? Newer kernel, perhaps?

[fesken]

Are you using proprietary drivers or just FOSS? Nvidia, AMD, or Intel? Do you recall what updates were available and were installed? Newer kernel, perhaps?

The laptop is an asus ux32vd, and the intel driver is used. I did a complete system update after installing the kde live spin, so i cant really be specific as to what update might have caused this behavior! The only propietary driver installed atm is nvidia since ux3vd is a optimus laptop.

[dcharlespyle]

The laptop is an asus ux32vd, and the intel driver is used. I did a complete system update after installing the kde live spin, so i cant really be specific as to what update might have caused this behavior! The only propietary driver installed atm is nvidia since ux3vd is a optimus laptop.

Please post the complete contents of your /etc/default/grub file.

Also, what happens if you boot to the next oldest kernel still installed on your system?

[fesken]

Booting kernel 3.9.5-301 seems to work fine (there is however an annoying monitor backlight bug with this kernel). Here comes my /etc/default/grub:

cat /etc/default/grub ~
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="$(sed 's, release .*$,,g' /etc/system-release)"
GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=true
GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="console"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rd.md=0 rd.lvm=0 rd.dm=0 $([ -x /usr/sbin/rhcrashkernel-param ] && /usr/sbin/rhcrashkernel-param || rd.luks=0 vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 vconsole.keymap=sv-latin1 rhgb quiet"
GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

I dont know what use it is since it seems to work with the older kernel though
Thanks for the help btw!

[dcharlespyle]

Booting kernel 3.9.5-301 seems to work fine (there is however an annoying monitor backlight bug with this kernel). Here comes my /etc/default/grub:

cat /etc/default/grub ~
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="$(sed 's, release .*$,,g' /etc/system-release)"
GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=true
GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="console"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rd.md=0 rd.lvm=0 rd.dm=0 $([ -x /usr/sbin/rhcrashkernel-param ] && /usr/sbin/rhcrashkernel-param || rd.luks=0 vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 vconsole.keymap=sv-latin1 rhgb quiet"
GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

I dont know what use it is since it seems to work with the older kernel though
Thanks for the help btw!

I believe that you are facing three issues. First, you are missing the nomodeset parameter that should be just before rhgb quiet in your kernel line. For NVidia proprietary drivers, not having that parameter in the right place often will do to you what you are experiencing.

Second, unless you have it configured elsewhere, you do not have the Nouveau FOSS driver for Nvidia hardware blacklisted. Your system may be trying to run both drivers at once. Some systems actually can get away with that happening but many cannot. You must make a choice as whether you want to use Nouveau (or other FOSS driver) or Nvidia proprietary. You need also to make sure that your initramfs does not have Nouveau in it so that should be renamed and replaced with a new one by using dracut to do it. If you already have Nouveau blacklisted elsewhere than would be in your kernel line, you can ignore what I wrote about this second problem.

The third and worst problem I think you are having is that Optimus hardware very often will not work right with the proprietary driver unless you first completely disable the integrated Intel graphics hardware in your BIOS. So, I think you need to completely disable that Intel integrated graphics hardware in your BIOS, remove the Intel driver if installed, and not use it at all or even allow it to remain enabled while you are trying to use the proprietary NVidia drivers. Your machine comes with discrete graphics so there is no need to have the integrated hardware also enabled. It causes all sorts of problems with the proprietary drivers.

Let us know what happens after you make the adjustments.

[fesken]

The optimus technology is actually used to save battery, and i have been running the bumblebee daemon with no problems before. From what i understand though, there is no way to disable the intel chipset since the discreet card uses it in some way to output the images it renders (i think it uses the intel chipset framebuffer). The intel chip is really enough for my every day work anyway (i mainly use bumblebee to shut down the discreet card). This nomodeset thing you mention i suppose is if you are running a system with the nvidia driver as your default graphics card, no? The driver is not loaded until i run an application with primusrun/optirun anyway.
I appreciate your help friend! I think that this is not a nvidia/nouveau issue though, since i encounter no problems with kdm when running kernel 3.9.5. Maybe it is an issue with the intel driver. On an earlier install, (also updated to newest) gdm worked without problems.

Btw, i also tried moving /etc/kdm/ to /etc/kdm.bak and restarted kdm but there was no change in results.