KVM switch issues with Xfce

Pat Timmons · **Joined:** Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:24 am **Posts:** 4

Greetings, I've just discovered and installed UberStudent and I really believe I will like it. However, I'm running into an issue which I think is best described here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... omments/20

Note, the post talks about both external and primary monitors and the thread talks about Intel and Nvidia being impacted and suggests the issue lies with xfsettingsd.

I've experienced this on three separate computers so far. Every time I switch away from the UberStudent install via KVM switch I have no video when I switch back. In addition, I could not install on the laptop at all without attaching an external monitor as it could not recognize the laptop display.

As the poster in comment 20 indicates, he experimented with moving away from XFCE due to the issue and for me the inability to switch between systems via KVM is a dealbreaker, especially when I need to dock and undock the laptop.

This appears to only impact me and people with similar KVM switch issues and I would think the majority of people with only one computer/monitor setup wouldn't need this info at all. Since I find the transaction burden to be too high for me personally to be willing to ssh into the system and kill xfsettingsd every time I need to switch back to UberStudent, I've opted to experiment also with moving away from XFCE.

I've installed Ubuntu Gnome Desktop via tasksel, and Gnome Flashback Services and Gnome Session Flashback window manager via ubuntu software center (not fallback or classic, flashback) which has completely fixed the issue.

The large downside of this of course is that I've lost ALL of the logical structure of the application menu. Though unfortunate, I really want this distro to work out for me with it's tools as I return to school late in life.

If anyone has another suggestion besides the one I've opted for that works better, please let me know. It will take some time to get that menu sorted out after this, not to mention getting rid of the various gnome pieces I don't need.

Thanks,
Pat

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Thu Jul 24, 2014 7:01 am

http://xpwithubuntu.blogspot.com/2013/0 ... ution.html

Does that solve the issue?

I myself have several xrandr scripts I run for situations.

My other question is whether this issue exist with LXDE.

Pat Timmons · **Joined:** Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:24 am **Posts:** 4

From some quick testing this morning it looks like the issue starts with 14.04 XFCE Ubuntu derivatives. I've done fresh installs (not VM's) of Mint 17 with XFCE, Xubuntu, and plain Ubuntu via netinstall selecting the XFCE desktop which I learned gives me Xubuntu anyway. Of course it also happens with UberStudent 4. Also, 4 could not be seen on the laptop to do an install without an external monitor at the native laptop resolution of 1200x800. And since you can't see it, you can't change the resolution making it only installable with an external monitor.

All four installs exhibit the same behavior on 14.04. Those that I've retested on derivatives prior to 14.04, including UberStudent 3 do not exhibit the issue. And as asked LXDE does not have the issue via Lubuntu with it working fine on both 14.04 and 12.04.

In the previous link I listed, at least two people said they had succcess in the same situation by regressing to and locking xfce-settings to version 4.11 from Ubuntu Saucy (that's 13.10 I think?) So, that's my first choice for a fix as I think I like version 4 of UberStudent better than version 3.

But I need a hand. I'm new to apt-get, Debian, Ubuntu, etc and newish to linux. Can you help me with how to perform that regression and lock it down to xfce-settings 4.11? How do I access the saucy repository, so forth.

I haven't yet tried the xrandr suggestions you posted as the date of posting means it was a problem on a pre-14.04 version and I'm not experiencing issues with pre-14.04 versions. Any help appreciated.

Pat

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Fri Jul 25, 2014 7:22 am

One other question. Do you know if this is an issue with MATE as the desktop?

Pat Timmons · **Joined:** Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:24 am **Posts:** 4

using Mint 17 with Mate desktop as the test install does not have the same issue. It works correctly to switch between systems with the KVM switch.

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Sat Jul 26, 2014 7:37 am

Great. I'll plan and see how the building goes of a MATE edition of UberStudent over the next weeks. No absolute guarantee but it is probable. Watch for an update about it or a release announcement.

Pat Timmons · **Joined:** Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:24 am **Posts:** 4

Excellent, I do think I'd prefer the Mate version. However, I've found a potential resolution for the XFCE issue as well. In one of the many threads I've been looking through related to the new version of lightdm and XFCE under 14.04 in general, some (but not all) posters have had success installing or if available turning on Gnome-Settings-Daemon in Settings> Application Autostart>check the box for Gnome-Settings-Daemon.

I've tested it on one of the desktops so far simply by checking that box without unchecking xfce-settings and I can successfully switch systems via KVM without issue. I'll try the same on the laptop soon to see how it works docking and un-docking in addition to KVM switching.

But, I'm still hopeful for the Mate version despite having found a fix that seems to be working so far -- as I believe for me, getting into a Gnome-like ecosystem will take care of most of my hardware issues.

Thanks for all the hard work you've done on the distribution so far and I'm glad I found it.

Pat

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:27 am

99% or so of all hardware support is in the Linux kernel itself, which is the same regardless of the desktop environment. The desktop environment, however, does provide many pathways in to the kernel and, if problematic, can cause bugs.

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