GNOME Users, Developers, et alia:
I am running Kali Linux with GNOME as my GUI and the system has been hanging at odd times recently (even under low utilization) and I cannot figure out why. The only hint I have is that it only happens when I am logged into the GUI and not when I am logged into a virtual terminal or ssh’ed into the system. Kali linux is running on a GD8200 with 16GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD with almost 90GB free on an older Intel Core i7 (4 threads).
One person I know did point out to me that Kali Linux is based on “Debian Testing”, but I responded that I’d been using Kali Linux for years since its initial release (not on this laptop all that time) and Kali Linux has been based on Debian Testing since its initial release as well. That said, I have been running Kali Linux on this laptop for at least 3 years or so absent stability issues as well.
It is entirely possible that some of issues I see are unrelated to others, but since I am not really much of a GNOME expert it is hard for me to break out which ought be posted in this forum as separate threads or which are related, thus I am lopping them all together here. I do apologize if that upsets anyone, but please do realize it is only because I need to learn what is related and what is not.
What the problem is: My my laptop LCD becomes frozen and locks up with no ability to move the mouse pointer or gain any reaction from any other key combination whatsoever.
After fully updating my OS and all packages, I started by running a vacuum on the journal and then running journalctl --follow on a terminal opened within GNOME. I pray that as I do my best to break out each error message there might be people here who can offer some wisdom and insight into resolutions. Follows hereupon are some of the journalctl messages I have seen that are ostensibly related to GNOME. I have added some of my thoughts below as well.
May 12 13:33:57 gd8200-ethernet /usr/libexec/gdm-x-session[3118]: (EE) event5 - SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: client bug: event processing lagging behind by 22ms, your system is too slow
|-> I presume this can be ignored and simply means my system was slow for a moment when I happened to try to use the trackpad? Or do I need to effectuate a change in my configuration or instantiate a specific driver or module?
May 12 13:44:12 gd8200-ethernet gnome-text-edit[28433]: Trying to snapshot GtkGizmo 0x55719ebd0dd0 without a current allocation
|-> I am not sure what this means but I doubt it has anything to do with my system instabilities.
May 12 13:48:57 gd8200-ethernet /usr/libexec/gdm-x-session[3118]: (II) Axis 0x1 value 1219 is outside expected range [1230, 5139]
May 12 13:48:57 gd8200-ethernet /usr/libexec/gdm-x-session[3118]: See https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/1.28.1/absolute_coordinate_ranges.html for details
|-> This link shown above no longer exists but I found this link which did work:
|-> Coordinate ranges for absolute axes — libinput 1.28.1 documentation
|-> I was able to modify the /usr/lib/udev/hwdb.d/60-evdev.hwdb
|-> Over time I will if this fixes this issue or not.
May 12 13:49:35 gd8200-ethernet gnome-text-edit[28433]: Broken accounting of active state for widget 0x55719e83f3d0(GtkPopoverMenu)
May 12 14:37:15 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: DING: GNOME nautilus 48.1
May 12 14:37:15 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: DING: DBus interface for File-roller (org.gnome.ArchiveManager1) is now available.
May 12 14:37:15 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: DING: DBus interface for Nautilus-Sushi (org.gnome.NautilusPreviewer) is now available.
May 12 14:37:15 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Can't update stage views actor unnamed [MetaWindowActorX11] is on because it needs an allocation.
May 12 14:37:15 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Can't update stage views actor unnamed [MetaSurfaceActorX11] is on because it needs an allocation.
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 39 with keysym 39 (keycode 12).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 31 with keysym 31 (keycode a).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 33 with keysym 33 (keycode c).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 32 with keysym 32 (keycode b).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 34 with keysym 34 (keycode d).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 35 with keysym 35 (keycode e).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 36 with keysym 36 (keycode f).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 31 with keysym 31 (keycode a).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 32 with keysym 32 (keycode b).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 33 with keysym 33 (keycode c).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 37 with keysym 37 (keycode 10).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 34 with keysym 34 (keycode d).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 38 with keysym 38 (keycode 11).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 39 with keysym 39 (keycode 12).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 35 with keysym 35 (keycode e).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 36 with keysym 36 (keycode f).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 37 with keysym 37 (keycode 10).
May 12 14:37:16 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Overwriting existing binding of keysym 38 with keysym 38 (keycode 11).
May 12 17:49:48 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Can't update stage views actor unnamed [MetaWindowActorX11] is on because it needs an allocation.
May 12 17:49:48 gd8200-ethernet gnome-shell[3314]: Can't update stage views actor unnamed [MetaSurfaceActorX11] is on because it needs an allocation.
I welcome the GNOME community’s input and guidance and I hope that the technical colloquy will yield meaningful improvements to both GNOME and my personal environment.
Stuart