Nov 3, 2026 6:56:20 AM Charles Curley <[email protected]>: > > On Mon, 2 Nov 2026 23:37:05 -0800 > Donald MacDougall <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Nov 2, 2026 6:34:22 AM Charles Curley >> <[email protected]>: >> > >> > On Sun, 1 Nov 2026 23:25:25 -0800 >> > Donald MacDougall <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> >> I have an Acer Aspire laptop. I hadn't upgraded it in a long time. >> >> It was still on bullseye which recently stopped receiving security >> >> updates, so I decided it was time to do it. I upgraded to bookworm >> >> which went swimmingly. Then I upgraded to Trixie which went even >> >> better. I have been using xfce for many many years and it seemed >> >> to work splendidly till I went to shut it down and found that the >> >> "Reboot" option which had always been the last option on the Apps >> >> list was no longer there, >> > >> > What "apps list"? >> >> Since I can't see it, from >> memory (not too good anymore) I really meant >> what you described below but the"Log Out" >> selection was missing from the bottom of the "Applications" list, >> thus I was unable to get the popup with six selections including (from >> memory) Reboot and Shut Down as well as sleep and several others. > > Fair enough. A secondary problem to be solved after you solve your > black screen problem. > > >> >> > I take it that you got a normal power up and were able to log in to >> > XFCE. >> > >> As I described in my reply to Greg, I have always logged in at the >> cli login prompt and then run XFCE by typing "startx". I've done >> this for many years. > > Noted. Thank you for the clarification. > >> >> After the upgrade to Trixie and after opening the terminal and >> typing "systemctl poweroff" I was able to use the power key to >> to restart, then login, then type startx and see my normal XFCE >> desktop. But after I the "systemctl halt" command in the terminal >> window I used the power key then logged in at the login prompt, >> typed "startx" and saw no desktop, just the black screen. >> >> > >> >> I had also >> >> noticed the "halt" option in the systemctl man page and remembered >> >> decades ago using the halt command to power down computers and >> >> wondered what the difference is between that and poweroff, so I >> >> tried it. After that when I started it up again, logged in and >> >> typed 'startx', >> > >> > Wait, logged in again to what? In a normal Debian XFCE installation >> > you log in to lightdm, which means you are already running X. >> >> As noted above, I have always logged in at the cli >> login prompt then run XFCE by typing startx. >> >> So why did >> > you type "startx"? And into what? Did you change from lightdm (on >> > console 7) to a non-graphical console (1-6)? If so why? >> > >> > >> >> instead of seeing the normal desktop, all I see is a black >> >> screen with a mouse cursor in the middle which I can move around at >> >> will but it does nothing. Apparently halt has changed meaning >> >> since way back when. >> > >> > Or, more likely, you did something you haven't told us about because >> > you didn't think it was significant. Which is why giving what you >> > think are unnecessary details is sometimes very important. >> >> I have omitted nothing. I have described in detail the exact order >> of everything I did. > > In your original post, you omitted the fact that you do not have > lightdm (or any other display manager) manager running, and that you do > the atypical "log in to a console, then run startx" routine. Which > omission lead to some of the confusion in this thread. Since you > described an atypical startup routine, I and others asked for > clarification. >
Fair enough. I misunderstood your usage of the term "omit". I thought you were referring to thing I did surrounding the occurrence of the problem. I wasn't thinking of things that I've always done for 20 plus years. I'd been logging in from the command line long before I ever installed X11. In fact another detail I've omitted from years back is the fact that I installed and used X11 many years before I installed XFCE. I downloaded and installed my own choice of applications such as Gnumeric and several different word professors. I looked at Gnome and KDE and found them too big and unnecessary. XFCE seemed to just provide a desktop and leave me to still choose my own apps. I don't really remember why I installed it. I did it probably 10 years ago or less. > > >> >> >> >> >> I'm on Wayland obviously with lightdm >> > >> > It is not obvious to me that you are on Wayland. How do you know you >> > are on Wayland? Don't tell us that you are on Wayland (obvious or >> > not). Show us you are on Wayland. >> >> Perhaps not. I've described my reasoning in detail >> in my reply to Greg and will not repeat it. I likely was wrong. > > Noted. > > The gold standard for that sort of thing is to run a test in the > terminal and copy and pasted the whole thing into your email, like so: > > charles@peregrine:~$ echo "$XDG_SESSION_TYPE" > x11 > charles@peregrine:~$ > > Note that I include the trailing prompt. That makes it clear that the > one line of response is the entire response. I ran it and. Must have forgotten to post the result. Here it is: dmacdoug@Acer-Laptop:~$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE" tty dmacdoug@Acer-Laptop:~$ Probably obvious since X11 isn't running. Maybe I should uninstall XFCE and just go back to X11. > I understand that you are using your phone for email, and that copying > and pasting is problematic. I don't believe I've seen any response to a > number of suggestions that you run the above experiment. > > If I've omitted any other answers I try to do better. > -- > Does anybody read signatures any more? > Don ps - I'm not trimming because it hard to do on my phone without accidentally losing more than I intend.
