• [deleted]

Hi

I want to share an Obarun Live iso which is intended for my main computer because I decided to switch on ZFS. The Live Iso is built with LXQT and JWM as window manager, Linux-lts with ZFS module and KDE softwares. I have also installed Sugar Candy login theme for SDDM created by marianarlt with a custom background. Tell me if on your side SDDM takes time before showing up. If this is the case I will report the problem to marianarlt.

Iso can be find on Obarun repository.
[13:24:54.067] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[13:24:54.086] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[13:24:54.086] (II) DAEMON: No session manager found
[13:24:54.087] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display on vt 7 ...
[13:24:54.109] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from ""
[13:24:54.109] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[13:24:54.109] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{4153f27b-5f0e-4a86-8e38-4a57df28ae70} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt7
[13:24:57.408] (II) DAEMON: Setting default cursor
[13:24:57.411] (WW) DAEMON: Could not setup default cursor
[13:24:57.412] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[13:24:57.457] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[13:24:57.457] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[13:24:57.457] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[13:24:57.463] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/sugar-candy/theme.conf"
[13:24:57.463] (II) DAEMON: Greeter starting...
[13:24:57.464] (II) DAEMON: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{4153f27b-5f0e-4a86-8e38-4a57df28ae70}"
[13:24:57.538] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[13:24:57.538] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[13:24:57.538] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[13:24:57.559] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[13:24:58.175] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[13:27:14.027] (WW) DAEMON: Signal received: SIGTERM
[13:27:14.027] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:27:14.027] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopping...
[13:27:14.027] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopped.
[13:27:14.027] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopping...
[13:27:14.090] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopped.
[13:27:14.090] (II) DAEMON: Running display stop script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop"
[13:27:14.098] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:27:14.098] (WW) DAEMON: QProcess: Destroyed while process ("/usr/lib/sddm/sddm-helper") is still running.
[13:27:14.129] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[13:27:14.132] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[13:27:14.133] (II) DAEMON: No session manager found
[13:27:14.133] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display on vt 7 ...
[13:27:14.133] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from ""
[13:27:14.133] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[13:27:14.133] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{0e4596da-b889-48b5-881a-eb7be9c81856} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt7
[13:27:14.718] (II) DAEMON: Setting default cursor
[13:27:14.722] (WW) DAEMON: Could not setup default cursor
[13:27:14.722] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[13:27:14.726] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[13:27:14.726] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[13:27:14.726] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[13:27:14.727] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/sugar-candy/theme.conf"
[13:27:14.727] (II) DAEMON: Greeter starting...
[13:27:14.728] (II) DAEMON: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{0e4596da-b889-48b5-881a-eb7be9c81856}"
[13:27:14.736] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[13:27:14.736] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[13:27:14.736] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[13:27:14.738] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[13:27:14.779] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[13:29:10.132] (WW) DAEMON: Signal received: SIGTERM
[13:29:10.133] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:29:10.134] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopping...
[13:29:10.134] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopped.
[13:29:10.134] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopping...
[13:29:10.141] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopped.
[13:29:10.141] (II) DAEMON: Running display stop script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop"
[13:29:10.146] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:29:10.146] (WW) DAEMON: QProcess: Destroyed while process ("/usr/lib/sddm/sddm-helper") is still running.
[13:29:56.227] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[13:29:56.233] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[13:29:56.239] (II) DAEMON: No session manager found
[13:29:56.239] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display on vt 7 ...
[13:29:56.239] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from ""
[13:29:56.239] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[13:29:56.239] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{ce8ab2db-094c-4b3b-99d8-5c79c6fea91d} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt7
[13:29:56.908] (II) DAEMON: Setting default cursor
[13:29:56.912] (WW) DAEMON: Could not setup default cursor
[13:29:56.912] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[13:29:56.917] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[13:29:56.917] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[13:29:56.917] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[13:29:56.917] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/sugar-candy/theme.conf"
[13:29:56.918] (II) DAEMON: Greeter starting...
[13:29:56.918] (II) DAEMON: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{ce8ab2db-094c-4b3b-99d8-5c79c6fea91d}"
[13:29:56.927] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[13:29:56.927] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[13:29:56.927] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[13:29:56.929] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[13:29:56.958] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[13:30:19.175] (WW) DAEMON: Signal received: SIGTERM
[13:30:19.176] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:30:19.176] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopping...
[13:30:19.176] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopped.
[13:30:19.176] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopping...
[13:30:19.212] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopped.
[13:30:19.212] (II) DAEMON: Running display stop script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop"
[13:30:19.254] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:30:19.254] (WW) DAEMON: QProcess: Destroyed while process ("/usr/lib/sddm/sddm-helper") is still running.
[13:30:52.479] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[13:30:52.481] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[13:30:52.481] (II) DAEMON: No session manager found
[13:30:52.481] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display on vt 7 ...
[13:30:52.481] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from ""
[13:30:52.481] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[13:30:52.481] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{82031e4f-267f-44f3-858c-8eab9c797698} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt7
[13:30:53.128] (II) DAEMON: Setting default cursor
[13:30:53.130] (WW) DAEMON: Could not setup default cursor
[13:30:53.130] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[13:30:53.136] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[13:30:53.136] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[13:30:53.136] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[13:30:53.137] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/sugar-candy/theme.conf"
[13:30:53.137] (II) DAEMON: Greeter starting...
[13:30:53.138] (II) DAEMON: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{82031e4f-267f-44f3-858c-8eab9c797698}"
[13:30:53.147] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[13:30:53.147] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[13:30:53.147] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[13:30:53.148] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[13:30:53.184] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[13:31:08.465] (WW) DAEMON: Signal received: SIGTERM
[13:31:08.465] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:31:08.465] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopping...
[13:31:08.465] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopped.
[13:31:08.465] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopping...
[13:31:08.469] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopped.
[13:31:08.469] (II) DAEMON: Running display stop script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop"
[13:31:08.475] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:31:08.476] (WW) DAEMON: QProcess: Destroyed while process ("/usr/lib/sddm/sddm-helper") is still running.
[13:31:15.318] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[13:31:15.319] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[13:31:15.319] (II) DAEMON: No session manager found
[13:31:15.319] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display on vt 7 ...
[13:31:15.320] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from ""
[13:31:15.320] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[13:31:15.320] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{51b48671-f065-47a1-990b-2537fb601c48} -background none -noreset -displayfd 16 -seat seat0 vt7
[13:31:15.948] (II) DAEMON: Setting default cursor
[13:31:15.952] (WW) DAEMON: Could not setup default cursor
[13:31:15.952] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[13:31:15.957] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[13:31:15.957] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[13:31:15.958] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[13:31:15.958] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/sugar-candy/theme.conf"
[13:31:15.959] (II) DAEMON: Greeter starting...
[13:31:15.960] (II) DAEMON: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{51b48671-f065-47a1-990b-2537fb601c48}"
[13:31:15.970] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[13:31:15.970] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[13:31:15.970] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[13:31:15.972] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[13:31:16.012] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[13:32:29.388] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[13:32:29.393] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[13:32:29.394] (II) DAEMON: No session manager found
[13:32:29.394] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display on vt 7 ...
[13:32:29.394] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from ""
[13:32:29.394] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[13:32:29.395] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{999c89e5-3b85-493e-8afb-4fc58976e6ee} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt7
[13:32:29.485] (EE) DAEMON: Failed to read display number from pipe
[13:32:29.485] (EE) DAEMON: Display server failed to start. Exiting
[13:32:35.662] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Login
[13:32:35.662] (II) DAEMON: Reading from "/usr/share/xsessions/lxqt.desktop"
[13:32:35.662] (II) DAEMON: Reading from "/usr/share/xsessions/lxqt.desktop"
[13:32:35.662] (II) DAEMON: Session "/usr/share/xsessions/lxqt.desktop" selected, command: "startlxqt"
[13:32:35.691] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[13:32:35.691] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[13:32:35.692] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
[13:32:35.692] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
[13:32:37.297] (WW) HELPER: [PAM] authenticate: Authentication failure
[13:32:37.298] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[13:32:37.298] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Ended.
[13:32:37.299] (WW) DAEMON: Authentication error: "Authentication failure"
[13:32:37.300] (WW) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 1
[13:32:45.151] (WW) DAEMON: Signal received: SIGTERM
[13:32:45.151] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:32:45.151] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopping...
[13:32:45.151] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopped.
[13:32:45.151] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopping...
[13:32:45.203] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Closing session
[13:32:45.204] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Ended.
[13:32:45.639] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopped.
[13:32:45.639] (II) DAEMON: Running display stop script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop"
[13:32:45.644] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:32:45.644] (WW) DAEMON: QProcess: Destroyed while process ("/usr/lib/sddm/sddm-helper") is still running.
[13:32:52.262] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[13:32:52.266] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[13:32:52.266] (II) DAEMON: No session manager found
[13:32:52.266] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display on vt 7 ...
[13:32:52.266] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from ""
[13:32:52.266] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[13:32:52.266] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{c2bc69a1-7656-4f60-8492-76aca015b232} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt7
[13:32:52.908] (II) DAEMON: Setting default cursor
[13:32:52.910] (WW) DAEMON: Could not setup default cursor
[13:32:52.910] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[13:32:52.914] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[13:32:52.914] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[13:32:52.914] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[13:32:52.915] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/sugar-candy/theme.conf"
[13:32:52.915] (II) DAEMON: Greeter starting...
[13:32:52.916] (II) DAEMON: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{c2bc69a1-7656-4f60-8492-76aca015b232}"
[13:32:52.924] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[13:32:52.924] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[13:32:52.924] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[13:32:52.925] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[13:32:52.959] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[13:33:49.783] (WW) DAEMON: Signal received: SIGTERM
[13:33:49.793] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:33:49.793] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopping...
[13:33:49.793] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopped.
[13:33:49.793] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopping...
[13:33:49.797] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopped.
[13:33:49.797] (II) DAEMON: Running display stop script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop"
[13:33:49.800] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[13:33:49.800] (WW) DAEMON: QProcess: Destroyed while process ("/usr/lib/sddm/sddm-helper") is still running.
oblive@ obarun-lxqt ~ % sudo 66-intree -c -g root
Name : root
Initialized : yes
Enabled : yes
Starts after : None
Current : no
Allowed : root
Symlinks : svc->source db->source
Contents : /
├─(791,Enabled,classic) tty@ tty1
├─(792,Enabled,classic) tty@ tty2
├─(2503,Enabled,classic) tty@ tty3
├─(2502,Enabled,classic) tty@ tty4
├─(2501,Enabled,classic) tty@ tty5
└─(2500,Enabled,classic) tty@ tty6
oblive@ obarun-lxqt ~ % sudo 66-intree -c -g desktop
Name : desktop
Initialized : yes
Enabled : yes
Starts after : root system oblive-session
Current : yes
Allowed : root
Symlinks : svc->source db->source
Contents : /
├─(3150,Enabled,longrun) sddm-log
├─(1784,Enabled,longrun) dbus-log
├─(1790,Enabled,longrun) dbus
├─(3154,Enabled,longrun) sddm
├─(1785,Enabled,longrun) consolekit-log
├─(1797,Enabled,longrun) consolekit
├─(1774,Enabled,classic) dhcpcd-log
└─(1775,Enabled,classic) dhcpcd
As the convention among 99% of distributions is to have tty1--tty6 active sddm wants to have them active to send X to tty7
Then lxqt and sddm open really fast when you reactivate the tree

So the fix is
66-all -t desktop down
66-enable tty@ ,.,.,.... @ tty6
66-all -t desktop up

make sure no stuck sddm process is not larking or use disable -S sddm first but 66-all -t desktop down should take care of it, unless you had hit ctrl-Z on console to stop the manual sddm ($ sudo sddm as the log above shows).

It says right on the log " start vt 7" that was my clue!

Or maybe the processes of sddm are split between X and itself and some are sent to tty3 some to tty7 so it fails in both.

Edit: When I stopped sddm because it wasn't starting, I killed it and disabled it, then tried to start it with sudo sddm, it still wouldn't start, so then I looked at the sddm.log. It is not 66 related exactly, you have to find the part within sddm that sends output to vt 7 and edit that part, me thinks.
  • [deleted]

Hi fungalnet.

Thank you for your test.

I don't see why it wouldn't work properly with Sugar Candy theme when it works with other themes with only tty1 and tty2 enabled. I rather believe in a bad configuration from my side or a problem coming from Sugar Candy theme.
The second try I did was failing because consolekit was throwing an error, somehow the before after stuff is messing something up.
When you remove the suspect services (dbus, consolekit, sddm) and try to enable them and start them one at a time, something weird is happening. When you enable consolekit dbus wants to be enabled too, a dependency?
When I stopped all 3 services, had enabled tty@ tty{3,4,5,6} and then also removed desktop dm and recreated one tree -S oblive-session and root then enabled -S dbus consolekit sddm on this new tree in one hit it all worked

Unfortunately all my installations are without consolekit so I can only try this with live so I don't know what it would be like booting it.
As far as I can tell there is 1) some conflict between consolekit and sddm and 2) it needs those tty1-6 active to start well.

Also, starting the 3 trouble makers separately seem to ONLY WORK if it is done dbus (success) then consolekit (success) then sddm. Still there is a small delay on sddm but it starts up at tty7
  • [deleted]

Only stop dbus who will also stop sddm then restart sddm.
I will try to build a new live iso with all tty activated and see if that solve the issue, but I remain in the idea that should not be necessary.
Hey guys. Good moment for me to check up on the forums. There's a LOT of things happening in my life at the moment and I have almost no time at all to be online. Less contributing. I won't go into details but this will still be true for another while.

Yesterday I had a pacman update with qt5-base from obcore and the new-config-location sddm version:
marian@ obarun ~ % grep -i upgraded /var/log/pacman.log
[...]
[2020-04-10T22:20:17-0500] [ALPM] upgraded qt5-base (5.14.1-4 -> 5.14.2-2)
[2020-04-10T22:20:18-0500] [ALPM] upgraded polkit (0.116-11 -> 0.116-12)
[2020-04-10T22:20:18-0500] [ALPM] upgraded kscreenlocker (5.18.3-2 -> 5.18.4.1-2)
[2020-04-10T22:20:35-0500] [ALPM] upgraded linux-lts419 (4.19.113-2 -> 4.19.114-3)
[2020-04-10T22:20:35-0500] [ALPM] upgraded pipewire (0.2.7-2 -> 0.3.2-2)
[2020-04-10T22:20:36-0500] [ALPM] upgraded sddm (0.18.1-4 -> 0.18.1-5)
After this a reboot greeted me with a blacked out SDDM showing a mouse pointer and a frozen tty cursor.
I checked several logs of X, 66 and SDDM itself without many hints.

@ Fungal I didn't read everything here, sorry, but if you only want to change the terminal for SDDM simply edit the [X11] section in one of the SDDM config locations:
[X11]

# The lowest virtual terminal number that will be used.
MinimumVT=7
After playing around a bit, reinstalling packages, reworking services etc. etc. and switching to another theme I suddenly got a rather famous error (at least for me):
"Configuration file /var/lib/sddm/.config/sddm-greeterrc not writable.
Please contact your system administrator."
So I contacted myself and touched that file. After that SDDM would still throw the error on start up but after clicking it away it would work as expected. So I checked permissions and it was chown root:root
I figured since SDDM is complaining literally about this I'd change that files ownership to sddm:sddm and since then it works fine.

The sad thing about this story is that it seems that my Sugar Candy theme might be broken and I got no clue as to why. It worked fine before. I'll have to check this as soon as possible.

Edit:
I removed, uninstalled and reinstalled Sugar Candy from the KDE system settings module and tested a bit. As I'm testing this on my legacy-obsolete-2006-MacBook-Pro the QML blur effect caused issues on this machine. When disabling the blur effect in the themes config it works just fine. So I suppose Sugar Candy works? Please try to play around with the themes config and disable all fancy stuff if you got problems. I wouldn't want people to have issues with my theme if it was some config error from my end. Please let me know anything you find out.
  • [deleted]

Hi marianarlt

You have come at the right time :)
Ok, well about sddm latest update brings some changes about the name of the default file in /usr/lib/sddm/sddm.conf.d/ directory.
1) Instead of sddm.conf the name is now default.conf. If you have done some change in the /usr/lib/sddm/sddm.conf.d/sddm.conf file ( but you should not because custom configuration for sddm has to be done in /etc/sddm.conf.d/ you will find a backup of this file.
2) This file is now automatically created with the command /usr/bin/sddm --example-config > "$pkgdir"/usr/lib/sddm/sddm.conf.d/default.conf during the pkg building.

I made this change to stay up to date with arch.

I'm really surprise that can affect your theme.
Let me know if everything is back to the normal on your side
@ Jean Michel

Yeah I read that post of yours in the update warnings section and I was really concerned with it. But I don't think it affects my theme in any way. Only the name changed. Users shouldn't touch it anyways and I personally don't have /etc/sddm.conf to begin with. The KDE module creates /etc/sddm.conf.d/kde_settings.conf which will take precedence over the default.conf but is really basic and only sets the parameters available through the KDE system settings module.

So in short: This should not affect any theme at all. (Then again its SDDM...) See my post above for my personal findings.

Also: If you remember I have had the issue where SDDM will not pop up by itself due to missing entropy several times (a lot actually). Usually it is advised to install haveged for this to create additional entropy. Back then Eric fiddled with the 66 boot and got it sorted eventually. Other users have reported before with SDDM that it's a race condition with services. Maybe this is the case here too. You could try to play around with the new tree ordering and fire SDDM as last service on a dedicated tree or something like that.
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"Configuration file /var/lib/sddm/.config/sddm.greeterrc not writable.
I do not have this directory and file on my side.
ls -la /var/lib/sddm 
total 4.0K
drwxr-xr-x 1 sddm sddm 100 Apr 11 15:08 ./
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 160 Apr 11 15:16 ../
drwxr-xr-x 4 sddm sddm  80 Apr 11 15:07 .cache/
drwxr-xr-x 3 sddm sddm  60 Apr 11 15:07 .local/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 278 Apr 11 15:08 state.conf
Who is the owner of this sddm.greeterrc file?
On my machine it was somehow set to root:root when SDDM complained about it.
So I changed it to sddm:sddm and it worked:
-rw-r--r-- 1 sddm sddm 0 Apr 11 10:47 /var/lib/sddm/.config/sddm-greeterrc
Please note the spelling of the file, sorry. I corrected the post above.
If you don't have this maybe try to create it. It's empty when I "cat" it so a simple touch and chown might be sufficient.

I somehow doubt it to be anything crucial though if your install doesn't even have it...
  • [deleted]

What's the output when you run
pacman -Qo sddm-greeterrc
Also about entropy you could run (after a reboot without haveged)
cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail
Then if it is rather low (<1000), install and run haveged.
I can not find that such a package even exists?
marian@ obarun [130] ~ % sudo pacman -Qo sddm-greeterrc
[sudo] password for marian: 
error: No package owns sddm-greeterrc
I haven't had entropy issues ever since Eric solved this issue a long time ago. Just mentioned it as an experience with SDDM ;)
marian@ obarun [1] ~ % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail
3890
(With haveged installed but not running as service)

Edit:
I would love to try your ISO but I'm stuck with very old legacy equipment for now which makes it impossible for me. Sorry.
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Well, perhaps sddm-greeter executable create this .config directory. I prefere to not change anything on my side, everything is working as expected. I could try to install Sugar theme on my main computer to see how its works.
jean-michel wrote[...]perhaps sddm-greeter executable create this .config directory.
Oh this might actually be the case since I manually preview a lot when writing themes. Sddm-greeter comes with sddm by default.
I caught a condition where dbus and consolekit were not running right, and under such condition sddm was failing. If consolekit by default needs to start dbus before it runs, then why enable dbus separately? Having the dm tree to run "after" the desktop (dbus ck) tree running doesn't mean that the services are running. So tree C is running but a service within it is failing and tree D tries to start but it fails too. On my experience this was part of the problem.

What you are saying about vt7 ... when you boot and get a black screen with a cursor, you are on tty3 although sddm's log shows it tried to open at vt7 ... but neither works right. So there is something split, and I believe it is x server and dm attempting to throw output into 2 separate tty ... Hacking sddm.conf to fix this may be a personal solution but it is not a solution for production. It is the packager's job to make sure this works out of the box. I don't know how theming affects this.
Hey fungal, how are you?
Are you saying that the SDDM from Jean's ISO is opening on tty3!? By default SDDM should use tty7 as expected. The default configuration file for SDDM (now being /usr/lib/sddm/sddm.conf.d/default.conf) actually hard codes this. If, on this ISO, SDDM tries to open on a different terminal then it should be investigated why that is so to begin with. (At least that's what I'd do.)
Now even if you changed the config line to be another terminal the actual themes shouldn't care at all. There are only a several hardware models provided for themes by SDDM which are: screenModel, sessionModel and userModel. A theme may get undefined values on any of these, or maybe call them wrong causing issues. But this specific theme has worked fine for months now with a lot of code. I doubt this is theme related. Although Jean Michel says that other themes work. This is weird.
I'm honestly clueless.

Edit: Also dbus, consolekit and the likes shouldn't be an issue if it works well with other themes? :c

Edit2: I found another suspect I thought of earlier but didn't investigate further. Obcore pushed qt5-base (again independently [not good!]) to 5.14.2 when packages like qt5-quickcontrols are still 5.14.1
I make specific calls to some qt5 modules. This may cause a version mismatch error on Obarun only. Please try to downgrade qt5-base to 5.14.1 and see if it works @ Jean Michel


With qt5-base 5.14.1 (5.14.2 freezes with black screen)

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