How to access CLI when SDDM fails to start?

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A black, unresponsive screen tends to be one of the trickiest problems when upgrading our operating system. In the previous release of NomadBSD 132R, without desktop environment, with OpenBox only, it was convenient:

  1. Ctrl-Alt-F1 — fish, dmesg /var/run/dmesg.boot;
  2. Ctrl-Alt-F2 — syslog /var/log/messages;
  3. Ctrl-Alt-F3 — tty terminal for root;
  4. Ctrl-Alt-F4 — back to X11 visual windows GUI (F9).

How to leave the display manager (SDDM) or otherwise gain a prompt command-line interface (terminal access) when XFCE fails to load?

freebsd-update refuses to run after reboot in a single-user mode, saying it is denied write access.

So today I postponed FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE, reverted to 14.2Rp3 via ZFS boot environment (bectl).

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Do we expect it to work with the current release of NomadBSD?

Note, the quote at https://forum.nomadbsd.org/t/freebsd-ghostbsd-nomadbsd-ubuntu-kubuntu-kde-plasma/2357/2?u=grahamperrin …

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I can’t run NomadBSD at the moment, with a normal installation of SDDM on FreeBSD I expect:

  • console at ttyv0 (Control-Alt-F1)
  • login prompt at ttyv1 …
  • SDDM, or the desktop environment, at ttyv8 (Control-Alt-F9).
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Neither of any Ctrl-Alt-F? button combinations works on the current NomadBSD (with Xfce). Ctrl-Alt-F1 brings up an empty black screen.

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5

Me too,
Now I have a pb with SDDM.
It send me back when I log .
In the past by defaut there is no logging but now it’s doing trouble.
I have access to ttyv2 by crtl+alt+f3.
Looking how to log directly.

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I also already have those four Ctrl-Alt-F3 key-bindings working when I upgraded FreeBSD to 14.3-RELEASSE-p1 and installed (but disabled) Slim.

Apparently a lack of drivers was an obstacle. I unlocked and removed the kernel meta package drm-61-kmod, stopped sddm, commented out sddm_enable in rc.conf, then installed and locked drm-61-kmod-6.1.128.1403000_5 for my AMD GPU Radeon 780M, also wifi-firmware-iwlwifi-kmod-ax210-20241017.1402000_2 for Wi-Fi 6. Finally, I put sddm back and rebooted my mini pc desktop AZW Ser7 7840HS, this time successfully. Cheers!

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I will test if that can works on my old Imac.
Everything was all right .
It was pleasant to don’t have to log.
As soon as possible, I will see what I can do.
Unhappy because I was studing programming system in C.
I can not access to my file.
I will find a suitable solution.
Thanks

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I have installed mc (Midnight Commander) to quick review, to access and edit of text files without GUI.

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Yes it’s easy to use
And quick.

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Finaly,
I remove sddm and reboot . Log with startx or startxfce but that doesn’t works .
I test slim but same probleme.
After that I install kde.
And now I’m back under nomadbsd and happy.
:grinning_face:

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