You are not logged in.

1

Friday, January 11th 2008, 11:48pm

KDE4 display/compositing problem, I think

So I updated to KDE4 (from 3.5.8) earlier today, and was going through all the visual settings and such, and changed one that was labelled "zoom" because my windows and overall desktop seemed rather large.

That was a mistake. Now whenever I log into my KDE4 session, it comes up to a black screen (everything actually loads though). So I try hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL and see what happens, the restart/logout/shutdown dialog comes up, only it's just a white box, and when I click randomly inside it, I can logout by hitting the area the logout box is.

So I'm thinking it's a problem with the compositing, and I have no way of fixing it right now. I've tried removing all the KDE4 packages and reinstalling them, and that didn't work. And right now I'm looking for a method to reset all the KDE4 settings to the installation defaults to see if that will do something.

Any help?


EDIT: So I created a new user account to see if that would do anything. When I try and log into my KDE4 session I get a "could not load kstatupconfig4" error dialog. Again, in need of some help.

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Kajun" (Jan 12th 2008, 6:26am)


2

Saturday, January 12th 2008, 9:13am

RE: KDE4 display/compositing problem, I think

Hi,

have you tried renaming the .kde4 directory in your home directory?

Cheers
Jetjockey32

3

Saturday, January 12th 2008, 6:12pm

Well renaming the .kde4 folder worked, since I'm using KDE4 to post this reply.

Thanks for your help.

P.S.- What do I do with the renamed folder? Delete it?

4

Saturday, January 12th 2008, 7:05pm

Well, you can of course delete it, if you don't find any preferences that you are now missing sorely (after you have renamed the folder).

I just didn't want to be the one who has suggested deleting a folder that contained irrecoverable preferences...

Cheers
Jetjockey32

5

Saturday, January 12th 2008, 8:09pm

Ah, then there's no worries then. I had only been using KDE4 for a few hours at that point, so settings i had before won't be lost, since they were only the defaults for the most part.

6

Sunday, January 13th 2008, 4:24am

This might have something to do with some of the desktop effects settings. I'm using the latest Nvidia drivers 169.07 with an 8800GTS, I was using KDE 3.5.8 with Compiz-Fusion with no issues. Xrender causes some windows to disappear and massive redraw problems for me. OpenGL works with some slight performance issues. It seems if I activate Keep thumbnails of hidden windows up to date, than my screen goes black but I can see and move the mouse.

technogran

Beginner

Posts: 20

Location: United Kingdom

Occupation: carer and retired

  • Send private message

7

Sunday, January 13th 2008, 12:53pm

Well I have a problem with my KDE4 set up in OpenSuse 10.3. Dowloaded the latest nvidia driver first but when I try to set up the windows effects in Desktop settings, they are greyed out and I get this

Composition is not supported on your system.
required Xextensions (Xcomposite and XDamage) are not available.

Yet KDE4 is running WITH all the window effects on a Kubuntu install of KDE4 using the same Nvidia Geforce 7300 LE graphics card, so what do I have to do to enable the same running under OpenSuse? What have I got missing. Also no KDE wallpapers either.

TG Can anyone help please or point me in the right direction? Thanks
TG

8

Sunday, January 13th 2008, 3:03pm

Quoted

Composition is not supported on your system.
required Xextensions (Xcomposite and XDamage) are not available.

Yet KDE4 is running WITH all the window effects on a Kubuntu install of KDE4 using the same Nvidia Geforce 7300 LE graphics card, so what do I have to do to enable the same running under OpenSuse? What have I got missing. Also no KDE wallpapers either.


In your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file see if you have this option under the "screen" section

Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"

You could also look at the two xorg.conf files and see if there are any other differences like that.

technogran

Beginner

Posts: 20

Location: United Kingdom

Occupation: carer and retired

  • Send private message

9

Sunday, January 13th 2008, 4:15pm

Okay Zerix01 will do but can you be more specific, how do I do this? Is it in the settings menu? Yast settings ? Sorry to seem so thick but I haven't ever had to check or do this before.

Thanks TG ?(
TG

10

Tuesday, January 15th 2008, 11:35am

You can just open the xorg.conf files with Kate or any other wordpad like app. They are located in the /etc/X11 folder on each install.

Also make sure the nvidia driver is selected and active, I'm not sure how to do this in Suse but if you do look in your xorg.conf file then look for the video driver being used it should be "nvidia" not "nv".

You could always just stick with Kubuntu.

technogran

Beginner

Posts: 20

Location: United Kingdom

Occupation: carer and retired

  • Send private message

11

Tuesday, January 15th 2008, 11:58am

Thanks for all your help I finally got it all working. How? Well I needed to input the following (found on nvidia 'how to conifigure your nvid for compiz-fusion

su -
nvidia-xcongig --composite
nvidia-xconfig --render-accel
nividia-xconfig --add-argb-glx-visuals d24

which I have never had to set under Kub found on the OpenSuse Nvidia package.

So all effects now working.

TG :)
TG

12

Wednesday, January 16th 2008, 6:17am

hello,
I'm using Kubuntu. I have the same problem with Kajun. In my machine (ATI Xpress 1150 IGP with fglrx properly installed), composting affects are much slower than the one in KDE3.5.8. Is this a regression?

13

Wednesday, January 16th 2008, 8:14am

Well KDE 3.5.8 never had compositing effects, they could be done by using Compiz-Fusion. So the KDE 4 effects are brand new with new code. I'm still having issues with the effects crashing Kwin but if they are only running slower for you than count yourself lucky :tongue:

The ATI drivers have had a lot of issues in the past of not supporting all the features needed for various 3D acceleration, maybe KDE is using a feature that is not fully supported in the driver but Compiz-Fusion is using another set of features not effected by the lacking driver. Just a theory though. But I may not be very far off, see this blog from one of the KDE developers.

technogran

Beginner

Posts: 20

Location: United Kingdom

Occupation: carer and retired

  • Send private message

14

Wednesday, January 16th 2008, 8:39am

Well don't know if this helps Zerix01, but my Nvidia graphics card is running the Desktop Effects okay not slow at all.

TG :)
TG

15

Wednesday, January 16th 2008, 2:06pm

Quoted

Originally posted by zerix01
Well KDE 3.5.8 never had compositing effects, they could be done by using Compiz-Fusion. ....


In my KDE 3.5.8 (Kubuntu), you can transparent unfocused window, have shadow or same animation. I mistake them with composting effects...;( Now I switch "Compositing type" to Xrender. And it's fast! ;) I think maybe I'm missing some options in xorg.conf....

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "grissiom_lxy" (Jan 16th 2008, 3:03pm)


16

Thursday, January 17th 2008, 10:14am

I've received KDE 4 package updates twice in the last two days but I haven't booted in to KDE 4 since. I'll have to see if anything has changed.

17

Wednesday, February 13th 2008, 2:03pm

I have similar problem (with xComposite and xDamage) in my KDE4. With one small difference: I'm using two separate X screens. When one of the screens is disabled(commented out in ServerLayout section) KDE allows transparency. But I'm unable to turn transparency on with two screens. It says "Required X extensions (XComposite and XDamage) are not available".

P.S.
Video - nVidia with proprietary drivers.
Linux distro - gentoo
KDE version : 4.0.1
Xorg version (7) 1.4.0.90
no errors from xorg or kdm in logs.