Nov 3, 2026 5:01:33 PM Greg Wooledge <[email protected]>: > > On Tue, Nov 03, 2026 at 16:45:40 -0800, Donald MacDougall wrote: >> xterm was already installed so running "startx xterm" does exactly as you >> described. > > Well, that's good news. That means your X server, kernel, and video > driver are all at least in good enough shape to run a basic X server > without any fancy crap going on. > > This means that whatever the problem is, it's either at the application > level (XFCE and company), or it's some sort of driver issue that only > happens when an application tries to do something fancy.
It has happened to me twice now after doing upgrades. Once on a very old desk top upgrading from Buster to Bullseye as I recall, and now on a much newer laptop after going from Bookworm to Trixie. I'd like to think that a driver issue is probably remote. > > After this point, unfortunately it may get a lot harder to get additional > clues. I'm hoping someone who knows XFCE, or video driver issues in > general, can help out. > I mentioned to someone a little earlier that maybe I should uninstall XFCE and see what happens. I ran X11 for a long time without any DE and installed XFCE much later. I've forgotten what I used for a window manager and a desktop back then. There were a lot of choices and I suppose some of them still exist but it's hard for me to remember now. I don't want to do it if I'm going to dig myself deeper into the hole I'm already in. Don
