Fedora 41 / Debian 12 - Workspace not loading

[pcardona34]

Hi Sergii,

After building from Packaging/Sources on Fedora 41, I was not able to launch Workspace even with (loginwindow.service) or without (startx) Login.app first.

Logfile.txt
Release.txt
Uname.txt

[trunkmaster]

Hi Patrick,

I've already seen that error message "NSColor.m:279 Assertion failed in void initSystemColors(void). couldn't get default system color selectedKnobColor" message on Fedora 41.

If I remember correctly my solution was to setup 'nouveau' driver for NVidia card (I've added nouveau.modeset=1 to kernel boot parameters). It's on MacBook Air 2011.

To sum up: it's definitely not GNUstep or NextSpace problem - it's Xorg/Wayland type of a problem - with nouveau.modeset=1 setting GNOME Wayland session doesn't work correcly but Xorg does. Look into /var/log/Xorg.0.log file - it may has clues to your issue's solution.

[pcardona34]

Hi Sergii,
I do not have a Nvidia, but the config.txt at boot add a parameter to the kernel command line loading a v3d driver made by Raspberry Pi Foundation I presume.

[pcardona34]

P.S.: Having the same issue now on debian 12 after tweaking Xorg conf to fix resolution/frequency and prevent Login.app flickering. See my Draft Pull request to review code changing attempt at this stage.

[trunkmaster]

P.S.: Having the same issue now on debian 12 after tweaking Xorg conf to fix resolution/frequency and prevent Login.app flickering. See my Draft Pull request to review code changing attempt at this stage.

Nice! Looking forward to complete PR.

Just curious: could you please make an install of NextSpace on Debian 12 in virtual machine? Will you have working setup or same problems?

[pcardona34]

Hi Sergii,

What machine should be targeted in the VM ?

[pcardona34]

P.S.: comparing between NextSpace and GSDE (OnFlapp) implementations, I found several differences worth knowing:

1. GSDE is able to run with my default screen resolution, without tweaking xorg and xrandr returns : 1920x1080 with 75Hz. While NextSpace and Login.app are flickering and need to be forced at a lower resolution: 1280x900 with 60Hz.
2. It is not only GWorkspace VS Workspace, but a choice on GNUstep Back: in NextSpace, it is "art", while in GSDE it is "cairo".

Did You have the opportnity to converse with OnFlapp about the GNUstep Back choice ? Has anybody already tried that with NextSpace ?

[theokeist]

P.S.: comparing between NextSpace and GSDE (OnFlapp) implementations, I found several differences worth knowing:

1. GSDE is able to run with my default screen resolution, without tweaking xorg and `xrandr` returns : `1920x1080` with `75Hz`. While NextSpace and Login.app are flickering and need to be forced at a lower resolution: `1280x900` with `60Hz`.

2. It is not only GWorkspace VS Workspace, but a choice on GNUstep Back: in NextSpace, it is "art", while in GSDE it is "cairo".

Did You have the opportnity to converse with OnFlapp about the GNUstep Back choice ? Has anybody already tried that with NextSpace ?

That would be on time since I wanna start new Slackware install and cannot decide on GNUstep or NEXTspace.

[trunkmaster]

P.S.: comparing between NextSpace and GSDE (OnFlapp) implementations, I found several differences worth knowing:

1. GSDE is able to run with my default screen resolution, without tweaking xorg and `xrandr` returns : `1920x1080` with `75Hz`. While NextSpace and Login.app are flickering and need to be forced at a lower resolution: `1280x900` with `60Hz`.

GSDE doesn't use displays and screen management implemented inside SystemKit while NextSpace does. By default, at first start SystemKit uses XRandR mechanism to automatically set resolution best applicable to your hardware. It's same as starting Xorg without any configuration.

2. It is not only GWorkspace VS Workspace, but a choice on GNUstep Back: in NextSpace, it is "art", while in GSDE it is "cairo".

Display resolution setting has nothing to GNUstep Back. GNUstep Back manages drawing and displaying text - it doesn't contain Xorg resolution management. Do you mean something different about GNUstep Back?

Did You have the opportnity to converse with OnFlapp about the GNUstep Back choice ? Has anybody already tried that with NextSpace ?

There's nothing to communicate about - NextSpace more integrated with OS than GSDE. Basically GSDE is a bunch of applications bundled together (and includes part of NextSpace BTW). NextSpace's idea is to be more consistent desktop environment in look/feel as well as OS integration. That's why it contains less applications then GSDE. BTW, now I'm working on more tight integration with D-Bus services (like UPower and UDisks2).

So if you think that resolution management in NextSpace is not appropriate, give me more information about your case. Basically I need to understand 2 things:

1. What resolution do you expect to get? Is it 1920x1080@75Hz?
2. What resolution do you get right after the start of Login.app? What do mean by "flickering"?
   Then I'll check code and try to find out what could be the cause of your problem.

[trunkmaster]

P.S.: comparing between NextSpace and GSDE (OnFlapp) implementations, I found several differences worth knowing:

1. GSDE is able to run with my default screen resolution, without tweaking xorg and `xrandr` returns : `1920x1080` with `75Hz`. While NextSpace and Login.app are flickering and need to be forced at a lower resolution: `1280x900` with `60Hz`.

2. It is not only GWorkspace VS Workspace, but a choice on GNUstep Back: in NextSpace, it is "art", while in GSDE it is "cairo".

Did You have the opportnity to converse with OnFlapp about the GNUstep Back choice ? Has anybody already tried that with NextSpace ?

That would be on time since I wanna start new Slackware install and cannot decide on GNUstep or NEXTspace.

I guess you've got enough information in my reply to @pcardona34 or something leaves unclear to you?

[pcardona34]

Hi Sergii,
Thank You for the clear explanations. I apologize my english: I am French, so I may sometimes use bad words.
What I mean to 'flickering' is something like a bad refreshing that makes lines of the screen move up and down. I think it is related to a bad autoconf 'xorg.conf' setup while trying to load Login.app and that this bad instructions are still there.

About my graphic hardware:

GPU model: Broadcom VideoCore VI.
It provides: H.265 (4Kp60 decode); H.264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode); OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics.
It uses shared memory.
It is related to overlay: vc4-kms-v3d which is loaded at boot according to /boot/firmware/config.txt

Related instructions:

# Automatically load overlays for detected DSI displays
display_auto_detect=1

# Automatically load initramfs files, if found
auto_initramfs=1

# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
max_framebuffers=2

# Don't have the firmware create an initial video= setting in cmdline.txt.
# Use the kernel's default instead.
disable_fw_kms_setup=1

# Run in 64-bit mode
arm_64bit=1

# Disable compensation for displays with overscan
disable_overscan=1

xrandr gives these infos:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 7680 x 7680
HDMI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 509mm x 286mm
   1920x1080     74.97*+  60.00    50.00    59.94
(...)

I shall try a new installation from a clean clone of the repo.

[pcardona34]

Hi Sergii,

I was able to install Nextspace from my branch (Debian12 arm64 pcardona34) on my pi400
with somme install scripts and resources modified and then opened successfully the Workspace.

• The story:

1. First, I used startx (no Login.app installed)

At the first launch, the screen was flickering.
In Preferences, I could find the current resolution (HD i.e. 1920x1080 @75Hz) had been detected, but obviously not supported. I downgraded to: 1680x1050 @60Hz, which was successfully applicated and then saved for the next logins.

2. I did NOT try with Login.app, because I know that the previous tries were unsuccessful and with side effects on Workspace. So I preferred to use XDM Display Manager until now: Workspace loads from XDM. It is OK now at this stage.

Please, see my proposals on the PR finalized.

I will try again under Fedora next week-end following the same method.