XFCE install tips and tricks

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 19:40

Are there any tips and tricks required to install the following?

garuda-xfce-lite-200713-linux-zen.iso

Three tries in, and no luck so far. It will apparently ‘boot’ - to what looks like it may be a grub menu - but any attempt to move past that ends up in a blank screen so far.

The system is an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G (integrated graphics) and has hosted a dozen other distros along the way without issue (except for Deepin!). I was planning a bare metal install, so I don’t have an inxi for you yet - but if it would help I can get it and whatever else from another install.

Would I be ahead to boot a known good DE, and switch it to XFCE later? Is there a choice I can make on the first menu that will increase likelihood of seeing something of Calamares? Thanks in advance for a response - and I know some of you are in ‘other’ time zones - so no rush

SGS · 22 July 2020 20:10

Bad download?
From where you download?
Download the Lite Edition from Sourceforge

Download the Lite Edition torrent

Download the Lite Edition from osdn

Download the Lite Edition

I’m burning the ISO on a USB stick and testing it on an old AMD computer.
cu and welcome

USB boot work (default is nvidia nonfree you must change to free!)- I install now on old metall.

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 20:38

Does that mean that the dreaded n-word is in use?! (nVidious)

I’ll try again - I can always revert to xf86-video-amdgpu afterwards…

BTW - I used the torrent, assuming it was less likely to be ‘corrupted’…

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 20:46

No progress - I see the eagle, watch the ‘busy’ spinner for a while, then see the monitor go from ‘nothing to display’ to ‘probably off’.

I’m going to see if Gnome edition comes up - there shouldn’t be any insurmountable difficulties switching that to XFCE later…

librewish · 22 July 2020 20:47

How did you flash the iso to usb

Use dd

Imagewriter

Etcher
Etc

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 20:48

Mint stick actually (fast on this system) but I could try something else if recommended (on EndeavourOS, so the AUR is open)

librewish · 22 July 2020 20:49

Mint stick should do the job

Okay can you press esc while the plymouth run ie garuda with spinner when booting

So you can see the text logs

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 21:13

OK - I’ll try that before the gnome version (which I now have acquired and written). If necessary, I could bare metal an Arch and then run your scripts? (not really that desperate right now)

librewish · 22 July 2020 21:16

Well at least gnome should work

But still you need to see the text output
To know whats wrong

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 21:34

I’ve seen the text output from both now - and I’m not any further ahead yet. Both run happily - with a wait for start job on the livemedia mhwd script - that seems to complete after about 40+ seconds. The last message is to the effect that Plymouth is ending, and it’s ready to start (lightdm or gddm) - after which it blanks the screen - I get the ‘no signal’ from the monitor, then it appears to die completely (no residual light from the monitor, even). So, presumably the greeters are running into something they can’t handle. Both were tried with free drivers this time. Here’s an inxi of the machine I’m trying to use:

┌17:22:11 WD= [~]
└───[email protected] ─▶$ inxi -Fxxxz
System:    Kernel: 5.7.9-arch1-1 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.1.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.20 
           info: xfce4-panel, plank wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: EndeavourOS 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME B450-PLUS v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter> 
           UEFI: American Megatrends v: 2008 date: 12/06/2019 
Battery:   Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech K350 serial: <filter> charge: 70% (should be ignored) 
           rechargeable: yes status: Discharging 
           Device-2: hidpp_battery_1 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse M510 serial: <filter> 
           charge: 55% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes status: Discharging 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 2400G with Radeon Vega Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 
           L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 62421 
           Speed: 3874 MHz min/max: 1600/3900 MHz boost: disabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3684 2: 3870 3: 3404 
           4: 3659 5: 3821 6: 3546 7: 3551 8: 3722 
Graphics:  Device-1: AMD Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] vendor: ASUSTeK 
           driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus ID: 09:00.0 chip ID: 1002:15dd 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: amdgpu resolution: 3840x2160~60Hz s-dpi: 96 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD RAVEN (DRM 3.37.0 5.7.9-arch1-1 LLVM 10.0.0) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.1.3 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 09:00.1 chip ID: 1002:15de 
           Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus ID: 09:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.7.9-arch1-1 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: ASUSTeK driver: r8169 
           v: kernel port: f000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full ■■■: <filter> 
           IF-ID-1: tun0 state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full ■■■: N/A 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 6.60 TiB used: 858.86 GiB (12.7%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO Plus 250GB size: 232.89 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s 
           lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: 1B2QEXM7 scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0A-00SM50 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
           serial: <filter> rev: 00WD scheme: GPT 
           ID-3: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD40EFRX-68N32N0 size: 3.64 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
           rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: 0A82 scheme: GPT 
           ID-4: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Seagate model: Expansion Desk size: 1.82 TiB serial: <filter> 
           rev: 0712 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 31.47 GiB used: 18.02 GiB (57.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p4 
           ID-2: /home size: 229.70 GiB used: 21.35 GiB (9.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 1.92 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p7 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 49.4 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 49 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 291 Uptime: N/A Memory: 13.66 GiB used: 1.04 GiB (7.6%) Init: systemd v: 245 Compilers: 
           gcc: 10.1.0 Packages: pacman: 1185 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.17 running in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.1.04

There’s about 7 or 8 other distros on here, so it should be ‘conformable’ enough to at least make it Calamares, you’d think. Any older versions of the ISO’s to try? Thanks for your tie - I’d like to see this - and SGS keeps the interest up with screenshots etc!

librewish · 22 July 2020 21:41

Well its very odd

Why your 2400g isnt working

I have ryzen 5 3400g with gigabyte ab350m bios

And i installed plasma lite iso without any issue

Can check if you can go to tty when boot process is done.

The things you can try is use imagewriter to write the iso.

There are no older iso i deleted them

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 21:52

I could try a Plasma next, I guess - although I’d be wanting a change shortly! I’ve never seen a greeter failure like this though. It won’t even let me to a console to try to bypass. Is there a way to break in and do my own startxfc4 or equivalent? Anyway - off to try Plasma - and just leaves 2 things to try:

Try a VM - maybe on my faster machine (Ryzen 7 3700X, RX580)
Squeeze a partition out of my other machine
Beyond that, I guess I just let it sit and see if it comes out of it eventually…

librewish · 22 July 2020 21:55

May be you could try to boot to live on your other system

So we can know if its only acting this strange on 2400g

But from my understanding

Garuda iso boot fine on other pcs

We need to see whats up

Is it the iso corrupted or something else
That needs to fixed

This time try flashing iso via
Imagewriter

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 21:59

OK - no install, just an attempt on getting to live with XFCE first on Ryzen 7.

freebird54 · 22 July 2020 22:35

OK - update. Experience looked the same, including the same wait for MHWD. BUT - as soon as finished with Plymouth, within about 1 sec, got a mouse pointer, then a live desktop. Looked pretty good (except you may want some ‘theming’ on that conky!) and the fonts and all were too small (of course). At least it was XFCE though, so I found Settings/Display and changed the resolution. I been getting pissed with MX lately, so I decided to give it a try by overwriting MX. Install failed (at the end, couldn’t find /boot/efi apparently - no grub (not that I care)) So I guess I’ll have to point out /boot/efi for it in manual mode - and let you know how it goes. Will having a previously defined UEFI partition and swap partition affect it? I was just going to let it do its own filesystem thing on a single partition (no experience with btrfs).
Willing (if you want to hear it) to give feedback/ideas on the install etc…

freebird54 · 23 July 2020 00:40

A little more information as I go along… I got it go on this time. Now to try to set it up! No idea yet on the original problem…

SGS · 23 July 2020 00:55

That’s probably done by your personal computer poltergeist

freebird54 · 23 July 2020 02:51

I still can’t think of a reason that would produce that result, though. Anyway - struggling through trying to set it up for my size of screen, and hoping I don’t mess up anything too much! For instance - there was something in the Downloads directory on startup - and I have no idea why - or whether I should have allowed it to exist (hint, I didn’t - as I normally link Downloads to another drive where I store many of my setup items (themes, fonts, icon sets, scripts) Never seen th9is dock either, I don’t know how that gets setup. Thanks for the suggestions guys - and it was at a minimum an excellent excuse to dump MX off this machine!

librewish · 23 July 2020 03:53

So which machine did it got booted ?

freebird54 · 23 July 2020 21:38

It is running on the Ryzen 7 without any problems - though I thought it was stuck a few times! At 92% it stayed for 2 or 3 minutes without signs of life - at reboot it took a couple of minutes before restarting - but since it has seemed fine.

Lots of things to reconfigure, though - they are not sized for a 3840x2160 screen! Eventually I will find the right dock settings (or replace with plank) I’ll have some thoughts about ‘improvements’ on your setup - but feel free to ignore them! Most of them are related to handling hi-dpi screens…

I did run into a couple of ‘oddities’ along the way - I sent a message to SGS on the EndeavourOS forum with details of that and other issues. Nice looking setup! Hope I can figure out what you’re doing - if only so I don’t mess it up…