Xubuntu Dapper?

[Margaret Wilson]

I installed release 4 of Ubuntu Dapper and then installed the Kubuntu
desktop, so now I'm running KDE. I never uninstalled the Ubuntu
desktop, so I could run either Gnome or KDE for a while. I've been
updating regularly, and mostly using KDE. So I just notice the Ubuntu
desktop is no longer intalled during my efforts to install and run xfce.
(I presume the Ubuntu desktop got removed during one of my "sudo
apt-get -y dist-upgrade"s....) Anyway, I installed the Xubuntu desktop
using Synaptic. Everything completed fine with no errors.

When the machine boots, it says Kubuntu before entering the Window
environment, but it says Xubuntu on the login screen. When I choose
xfce as my login manager (for the session), xfce shows a white
background with a blue mouse(?) running on a wheel. The I get a
horizontally striped green screen with the xfce logo in the middle and
nothing else. I can move my mouse around, but there's no menu bar,
nothing. I can still boot into KDE without incident.

When I boot after selecting "failsafe terminal" and enter "startxfce4",
I get the following errors:

Not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine
(xfwm4:4870): Warning: the display does not support the XComposite
extention.
(xfwm4:4870): Warning: Compositing Manager disabled.
Not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine

I can see several xfce components in the KDE menus, and I can use these
apps just fine. I have previously run xfce briefly on Fedora Core 3 and
perhaps Ubuntu Breezy as well. So I know my monitor and video card can
handle it. Synaptic says the Xubuntu desktop is there. So I suspect I
just need to do a bit of file editing to make xfce work. Can anyone help?

I'm using the 32-bit version BTW.

Thanks and Regards,

Margaret

[KC1DI]

Margaret Wilson wrote:

> I installed release 4 of Ubuntu Dapper and then installed the Kubuntu
> desktop, so now I'm running KDE. I never uninstalled the Ubuntu
> desktop, so I could run either Gnome or KDE for a while. I've been
> updating regularly, and mostly using KDE. So I just notice the Ubuntu
> desktop is no longer intalled during my efforts to install and run xfce.
> (I presume the Ubuntu desktop got removed during one of my "sudo
> apt-get -y dist-upgrade"s....) Anyway, I installed the Xubuntu desktop
> using Synaptic. Everything completed fine with no errors.
>
> When the machine boots, it says Kubuntu before entering the Window
> environment, but it says Xubuntu on the login screen. When I choose
> xfce as my login manager (for the session), xfce shows a white
> background with a blue mouse(?) running on a wheel. The I get a
> horizontally striped green screen with the xfce logo in the middle and
> nothing else. I can move my mouse around, but there's no menu bar,
> nothing. I can still boot into KDE without incident.
>
> When I boot after selecting "failsafe terminal" and enter "startxfce4",
> I get the following errors:
>
> Not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine
> (xfwm4:4870): Warning: the display does not support the XComposite
> extention.
> (xfwm4:4870): Warning: Compositing Manager disabled.
> Not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine
>
> I can see several xfce components in the KDE menus, and I can use these
> apps just fine. I have previously run xfce briefly on Fedora Core 3 and
> perhaps Ubuntu Breezy as well. So I know my monitor and video card can
> handle it. Synaptic says the Xubuntu desktop is there. So I suspect I
> just need to do a bit of file editing to make xfce work. Can anyone help?
>
> I'm using the 32-bit version BTW.
>
> Thanks and Regards,
>
> Margaret

Hi Margaret,
Can't help Yet haven't had time to work on it yet , but I have the exact
same problem on my Athlon Machine.. but XFCE work great on my intel
laptop. So I'm assuming that it may be a processor problem or bug. but
then maybe not.. will follow this post with interest to see if anyone
has the answer. If time permits this week I will work on solving it my
self also.. let me know you you find the answer -thanks

Regards,
Dave

[Margaret Wilson]

KC1DI wrote:

> Hi Margaret,
> Can't help Yet haven't had time to work on it yet , but I have the exact
> same problem on my Athlon Machine.. but XFCE work great on my intel
> laptop. So I'm assuming that it may be a processor problem or bug. but
> then maybe not.. will follow this post with interest to see if anyone
> has the answer. If time permits this week I will work on solving it my
> self also.. let me know you you find the answer -thanks

Thanks for your response, Dave. Actually my machine is an Athlon
XP2800+ (Epox 8RDA+ mainboard) and an nVidia video card (Geforce 4
440MX). The machine that successfully ran xfce previously is an Athlon
XP3200+ (Abit NF7-S2 mainboard), but it has an ATI Radeon 9200 video
card. Maybe xfce doesn't like my nVidia video card? All my machines
dual boot WinXP Pro SP2 for testing purposes, and on my 3200 machine, I
currently have a second instance of Windows as I'm beta testing (can't
say what). ;-) Ubuntu/Kubuntu will no longer install on this machine
since I installed the second instance of Windows. (Install hangs when
it tries to install GRUB.) But I did manage to install Mepis 3.4.3 on
it. Perhaps I should try to install xfce there and not mess with my
Dapper install till I get a solution. (I've read that the way to
install Xubuntu is to do a server install of K/Ubuntu and then apt-get
the Xubuntu desktop. I don't really want to wipe my working Dapper box
to try this.)

Anyway, if I find a solution, I'll post back. Any and all comments welcome.

Regards,

Margaret

[Margaret Wilson]

Hmmm, xfce installed just fine on Mepis 3.4.3 on my Athlon machine with
the Radeon 9200 video card.... I have Kubuntu 5.1 (64-bit) installed on
my third machine, which has AMD64-3800 CPU and an Epox 9NPA+Ultra
mainboard with a Geforce 6600 video card. Guess that's my next test.

Regards,

Margaret

[Lennart]

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 01:05:30 -0500, Margaret Wilson wrote:

> I installed release 4 of Ubuntu Dapper and then installed the Kubuntu
> desktop, so now I'm running KDE. I never uninstalled the Ubuntu
> desktop, so I could run either Gnome or KDE for a while. I've been
> updating regularly, and mostly using KDE. So I just notice the Ubuntu
> desktop is no longer intalled during my efforts to install and run xfce.
> (I presume the Ubuntu desktop got removed during one of my "sudo
> apt-get -y dist-upgrade"s....) Anyway, I installed the Xubuntu desktop
> using Synaptic. Everything completed fine with no errors.
>
> When the machine boots, it says Kubuntu before entering the Window
> environment, but it says Xubuntu on the login screen. When I choose
> xfce as my login manager (for the session), xfce shows a white
> background with a blue mouse(?) running on a wheel. The I get a
> horizontally striped green screen with the xfce logo in the middle and
> nothing else. I can move my mouse around, but there's no menu bar,
> nothing. I can still boot into KDE without incident.
>
> When I boot after selecting "failsafe terminal" and enter "startxfce4",
> I get the following errors:
>
> Not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine
> (xfwm4:4870): Warning: the display does not support the XComposite
> extention.
> (xfwm4:4870): Warning: Compositing Manager disabled.
> Not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine
>
> I can see several xfce components in the KDE menus, and I can use these
> apps just fine. I have previously run xfce briefly on Fedora Core 3 and
> perhaps Ubuntu Breezy as well. So I know my monitor and video card can
> handle it. Synaptic says the Xubuntu desktop is there. So I suspect I
> just need to do a bit of file editing to make xfce work. Can anyone help?
>
> I'm using the 32-bit version BTW.
>
> Thanks and Regards,
>
> Margaret

I have the exact same problem but unfortunately no solution (yet). I've
always been using xfce4 under breezy with no problems. This weekend I
upgraded from breezy to dapper, and then xfce still worked. However, I
then installed ubuntu-desktop (ie gnome) and then the problem
started. When I boot into xfce I get the problem you describe, only my
desktop background and a mouse cursor; logging into gnome seems to work
but I'm unable to start up any programs. KDE is the only desktop
environment that still works... both xfce and gnome are unusable. It looks
like some kind of conflict between ubuntu-desktop and xubuntu-desktop in
dapper...


Lennart