Plasma went BLACK

[claydoh]

Hit ctrl-alt-f1 (or f2,3,4), and log in as your username.

[hesediel]

i think that this kubuntu 15.04 does not want to start...this is the second time that this appears to me. First time i had to reinstall..

[Karut]

Running Dolphin as root has caused many problems as it is possible to inadvertently change file ownership from the user to root...

You mean as in a bug? I could not find any bug with that description. I can reproduce this though. The systemsettingsmenu also stops working until I execute the chwon command.

[claydoh]

You mean as in a bug? I could not find any bug with that description. I can reproduce this though. The systemsettingsmenu also stops working until I execute the chwon command.

No, this is NOT a bug. System Settings is NOT designed to be used with Admin privileges - this is not needed for user-level configurations, and if there is something that requires those privileges, it will prompt you for your password. when needed.

yes, sometimes a file manager ot text editor can sometimes need to be run with elevated privileges, but one would use kdesudo instead of sudo - you don't even need a terminal for this, as you can enter the command in Krunner (alt-f2).

[geezer]

So is there no solution to this problem (?) other than not using Dolphin with sudo?

I know that I use sudo occasionally to affect files in /etc. And come to think of it it was after doing so that plasma would crash and I got the blank screen after logging back in.

Is that really not a problem

[claydoh]

Warning: use kdesudo dolphin to do these tasks

using sudo to run a gui program with elevated pricvileges has the strong potential to change permissions on your user config files, at the least making it so that the application used may not be able to have settings changed or accessed anymore (as the normal user).

Warning: Use kdesudo dolphin to do these tasks. It prevents these permission changes from happening.

I do not think that the action of editing a file in /etc itself is the cause of your crash, it may be that plasma (which is run as the user) suddenly can't access something that has it's permissions changed, and crashes.

Warning: Use kdesudo dolphin (or kate- it is safer to browse files as user, then open them in an editor as Admin) to do these tasks

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...s service menu would be a perfect tool for you, though it currently needs a small bit of manual tweaking to install properly.

[geezer]

Warning: use kdesudo dolphin to do these tasks

using sudo to run a gui program with elevated pricvileges has the strong potential to change permissions on your user config files, at the least making it so that the application used may not be able to have settings changed or accessed anymore (as the normal user).

The ONLY files I instructed dolphin to affect were 4 files in "/etc". Specifically, /etc/hosts, /etc/hosts.allow, /etc/hosts.deny and /etc/profile. I changed the permissions so that I could edit in jedit, save the file and then changed the permissions back. Period end of use. Very simple. I could have effected the same with 8 commands in a terminal, but it has been over 30 years since I used CL to do such things and I don't want to spend a lot of time refreshing my memory with my CL desk reference. Quicker and easier to use dolphin. I have done so for many iterations of Kubuntu and had zero problems in the past. If Dolphin effected changes elsewhere then that is definitely a s/w bug and not user carelessness.

Warning: Use kdesudo dolphin to do these tasks. It prevents these permission changes from happening.

I do not think that the action of editing a file in /etc itself is the cause of your crash, it may be that plasma (which is run as the user) suddenly can't access something that has it's permissions changed, and crashes.

I changed the permissions of the four files listed above. End of use. I have used Jedit for years and have used it on 14.xx and 15.04 with no problems. Plasma crashed, and from this thread it appears that Dolphin or sudo changed the /.kde and /.cache folders in some meaningful way to prevent plasma from booting. That is a s/w bug

Warning: Use kdesudo dolphin (or kate- it is safer to browse files as user, then open them in an editor as Admin) to do these tasks

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...s service menu would be a perfect tool for you, though it currently needs a small bit of manual tweaking to install properly.

I thank you for pointing out the use of kdesudo. I will try to use it in the future. I did know that kdesudo did not grant full root access/privileges. I will try and use to see if it will allow me to accomplish the above file permissions changes.

Also, I will spend some time with my Unix/Linux CL desk reference and go back to using the CL to effect changes needing root privileges. It will probably be fun to revisit ancient history.

[claydoh]

kdesudo sure does grant full powers, to be sure!
From the wiki:

You should never use normal sudo to start graphical applications as root. You should use gksudo (kdesudo on Kubuntu) to run such programs. gksudo sets HOME=~root, and copies .Xauthority to a tmp directory. This prevents files in your home directory becoming owned by root.

I would also offer the suggestion of simply running your text editor with kdesudo, and opening the files from there. There really is no need to browse to the file you want, change permissions, edit it, then change permissions back. Even if you used Dolphin with kdesudo to browse and open the file, the text editor would open with admin (kdesudo) rights as well, so you can skip the permission steps altogether.

[hesediel]

for me kubuntu 15.04 becomed unusable, always crashes, and even when i dont run dolphin as sudo, so i am not so sure that the dolphin is the real problem

but i will try again...and what if trying another file manager if dolphin is real the problem? uninstall it and try some other?

[claydoh]

for me kubuntu 15.04 becomed unusable, always crashes, and even when i dont run dolphin as sudo, so i am not so sure that the dolphin is the real problem

but i will try again...and what if trying another file manager if dolphin is real the problem? uninstall it and try some other?

No, Dolphin is likely not the problem - if you are using sudo to run any gui program, you run the risk of changing permissions on some files, it does not matter which file manager you are using.
Use kdesudo instead.

If a file permission is changed, problems might not be apparent until later, sometimes not until after logging off or rebooting. Your settings and such are loaded into memory, and changes are stored there, not necessarily written back to disk immediately. You may not find a crash situation until later on.

[geezer]

kdesudo sure does grant full powers, to be sure!
From the wiki:



I would also offer the suggestion of simply running your text editor with kdesudo, and opening the files from there. There really is no need to browse to the file you want, change permissions, edit it, then change permissions back. Even if you used Dolphin with kdesudo to browse and open the file, the text editor would open with admin (kdesudo) rights as well, so you can skip the permission steps altogether.

Yes I have started doing that.

I'm still shy of running dolphin with sudo - gave me too much grief in crashing plasma. I reinstalled many times.

Now I simply Alt-F2 and run 'kdesudo jedit' and do what I want. First I loaded the files to change and saved copies to the installed filename with .o added on the end. Thus, I still have the original, installed files if needed.

Doesn't work for everything, I needed to Alt-F2 and run 'kdesudo dolphin' once to create the file /export, but that went well (faster than diving into my CL command reference). I immediately rebooted and the reboot went well with plasma booting fine.

I could run 15.04 from an external USB hdd and had no problems whatsoever. 15.04 ran fine on both the desktop and laptop off the external USB hdd. So when I got the new computer last thurs I reconfigured the hdd's and installed Windows 8.1 on a hdd from the old computer that I installed on the new computer and setup the boot sequence on the hdd's and installed 15.04 on the new ssd. (That is really nice - 15.04 now boots from power on to the login screen in about 34 secs as opposed to the 2 to 4 minutes on the old computer on hdd). 15.04 seemed okay to start with. But I re-installed 2 times because 'sudo dolphin' gave me a blank, black screen on reboot. The virtual desktops were there - I could cycle through them with Ctl-F1/2/3/4. So it became obvious that plasma was the problem. Booted into Windows 8.1 and looked at the forums here and this thread popped right out at me. Followed the instructions about moving ~/.kde and ~/.cache and rebooted and plasma came right up. Only no panel, but that was easy to fix by adding another panel and since I hadn't changed the original, that was no problem.

I still hold my breath on every reboot, but they have done fine thus far. Thanks for the hint on using kdesudo - that hopefully solves the problem of plasma crashing and not booting for me.

I'm starting to get used to 15.04. I like some features better. One thing I cannot understand, If I click on the launcer and then click "Recently Used" I only get a list of files recently accessed/changed. under previous versions, the programs I recently used were listed. I don't understand the reason for changing that. Eliminates the useful of the "Recently Used" list for me.

[dtr]

I occasionally experience Plasma blackouts too. I haven't figured out what is causing it for me as it will happen when running various programs. I also more frequently experience KWin momentarily freezing/reseting, with message "Graphics Resets - A graphics reset event occurred."