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#1 2017-09-07 15:37:24

lyndhurst
Member
Registered: 2017-09-07
Posts: 3

Debian XFCE install, Only wallpaper after login nothing else; SOLVED

Hi,
I am not completely new to debian, I played around with it for almost a year on VMs, and started using it a lot for the last three months.
It is my first install on real hardware though.

I successfully installed debian 9 as a dual boot with windows 10.
I chose automatic partitioning of a free space of 37 gb next to the windows partition.
A swap and ext4 partition were created, efi recognized, everything was ok.
I know it is a small partition, but I checked on debian sites, and it should be more than enough to start customizing the system, and installing/setting basic applications I think.
The only thing that surprised me was the swap created was quite big; almost half the space, but I should trust that the installer knows better )

Everything went fine, grub was installed correctly.
The computer is an asus laptop, one year old, intel i7, 16gb ram, 500gb ssd.
The PC boots as expected, I get to the login where I can login with the user account as well as the root account.

The problem is that after logging in, there is nothing but the wallpaper and the cursor..

Absolutely nothing else.. No default shortcut / hotkey works, all I could notice is that ctrl + alt + f2 makes the cursor disappear.
Nothing else seems to happen whatever I try; I have to press the shutdown key to get out..

In recovery mode, at the end of what looks like a slow booting process, I am prompted for a root password for maintenance, and,  given the alternative of pressing ctrl+shift+D to "continue".

At that point, entering root password logs me in a full screen terminal as root, and, only pressing 'enter' gets me to a full screen terminal like login.
There everything looks fine, all the folders I am used to see are there, I can run commands, update apt repository..

But, once in a while (I cannot reproduce every time), Ctrl+Shift+D brings me to the graphical usual login page, and logging from there starts a normal xfce session.
Within this session, everything works as expected, I can even log out and back into the session, but a restart brings me back to the options described above.

For information, windows boot is offered by Grub, and works perfectly.

Things I have tried:

I tried of course going through the install process again, I did it 4 times for the same results exactly every time. I used two different ISO images (1 downloaded today from the official site), on a cd, and, a usb once created with rufus, another time with windisk imager. The only thing I did not try yet is using a different repo source during installation..

I tried a solution I saw on various xfce threads to remove ~/.config/xfce4 , and/or, ~/.cache to no effect.
I also tried installing ldm package as it was suggested on an ubuntu forum, but no luck.
I ran

apt install --reinstall xfce4
apt install --reinstall xfce4-goodies

I tried with boot secure enabled, disabled, with fast boot enabled, disabled as well.

I am sorry for such a lengthy question, especially for my first post, but I am desperate, I love debian and xfce, I practiced a bunch on VMs before taking the leap and finally giving up windows, so I am disappointed ...)
I would really appreciate any help as there is very little I could find by myself related to this issue.
Thanks a lot..

Last edited by lyndhurst (2017-09-09 06:04:56)

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#2 2017-09-07 16:28:01

sixsixfive
Member
From: behind you
Registered: 2012-04-08
Posts: 579
Website

Re: Debian XFCE install, Only wallpaper after login nothing else; SOLVED

have you other xsessions? try to select xfce from the login mange before a login

does the applications finder open if you press alt+f2?

also what happens if you go to the virtual console and log in as your user? eg is the home partion mounted and writeable? does xfce start if you enter startxfce4?

>The only thing that surprised me was the swap created was quite big; almost half the space, but I should trust that the installer knows better )

it really depends on the size of your ram since debian uses the swap partition for hibernation

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#3 2017-09-08 08:49:10

lyndhurst
Member
Registered: 2017-09-07
Posts: 3

Re: Debian XFCE install, Only wallpaper after login nothing else; SOLVED

Thanks a lot for your interest, I am going to try out those commands you suggested.
For the swap part, I went ahead yesterday and read about it, and yes I guess with my 16 gb  of ram that might be the reason.
To answer your questions, but sorry, I am not yet acquainted with all the technical terms:

>have you other xsessions? try to select xfce from the login mange before a login
If you mean by selecting xfce on the top right corner icon of the login page, yes I tried it, and got exactly the same behavior.
I am sorry, I am not sure what you mean by other xsessions..

>does the applications finder open if you press alt+f2?
When I log in normally, nothing works , except ctrl+alt+f2 that makes the cursor permanently disappear..

>also what happens if you go to the virtual console and log in as your user?
If the virtual console is the full screen terminal I get to logging in through the recovery mode, then, everything is as expected, the files and folders installed are exactly what I am used to , the commands I run works well.
I did not try startxfce4 yet, I am going to try, and I ll get back here.
But that might be what I described when pressing ctrl+shift+D in the recovery mode, once in five or six attempts, the usual graphic login pops up, and I am able to log in in a perfectly functioning session that even allows me to log out, and back in.

Thank you again..

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#4 2017-09-08 17:11:26

lyndhurst
Member
Registered: 2017-09-07
Posts: 3

Re: Debian XFCE install, Only wallpaper after login nothing else; SOLVED

Thanks a lot for the help,

But, finally the problem is solved (if I have to mark it solved somewhere, please let me know I am new here...)

Anyway I increase the size to 50 gb, and tried the install from a nonfree cd image instead of the installer, and finally it worked perfectly, boots between windows and debian like a charm.
I do not know which did the trick, but Thanks again for your help...

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#5 2017-09-08 23:51:16

MountainDewManiac
Member
From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez
Registered: 2013-03-24
Posts: 1,115

Re: Debian XFCE install, Only wallpaper after login nothing else; SOLVED

lyndhurst wrote:

if I have to mark it solved somewhere, please let me know

It isn't a requirement, but we are strongly encouraged to mark our threads as being solved (when they become so). Go back to the first post in this thread. You should see an "Edit" link. Use that to edit your post, and simply preface your thread title with [SOLVED]. And thanks for letting everyone know what fixed the issue for you.

Regards,
MDM


Mountain Dew Maniac

How to Ask for Help <=== Click on this link

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#6 2019-01-14 04:37:36

gopher
Member
Registered: 2019-01-14
Posts: 1

Re: Debian XFCE install, Only wallpaper after login nothing else; SOLVED

Also solved for me: New install of Debian 9 XFCE on older laptop.  The OS worked great 'live', straight-forward install except only got wallpaper with user login, per OP. Your tip of Ctrl-Alt-F2 to drop into shell gave me something to work with, and what I did was just update everything through apt-get.  Next reboot put me into a working desktop environment as you would expect.

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