Bug 1227354 - Unusual phenomena, such as no white rectangle, or edit control, seen on the login screen into which to enter a regular-user password for entry into a Leap-15.6, “guest” operating system of VirtualBox
Summary: Unusual phenomena, such as no white rectangle, or edit control, seen on the l...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: openSUSE Distribution
Classification: openSUSE
Component: Virtualization:Other (show other bugs)
Version: Leap 15.6
Hardware: Other Other
: P5 - None : Normal (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Larry Rainey
QA Contact: E-mail List
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Reported: 2024-07-03 17:09 UTC by Lawrence Somerville
Modified: 2024-07-12 22:29 UTC (History)
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Description Lawrence Somerville 2024-07-03 17:09:52 UTC 
Hello.  I upgraded my Leap-15.5 installation to Leap 15.6 as a “guest” operating system in Oracle Corporation’s VM (Virtual “Machine”) VirtualBox 7.0.18r162988 (Qt5.15.2).  After beginning the “booting” of that Leap-15.6 installation I reached a login screen, or dialog box.  On such a login screen using computer software I have been used to seeing a white rectangle, or edit control, into which to enter a password.

Unusual phenomenon 1:  But I did not such a white rectangle, or edit control there.

Nevertheless I could enter my regular-user password and on that login screen see corresponding black discs against an otherwise probably dark-blue-colored background.  And each one of those black discs probably corresponded to a character I entered for my regular-user password.  Then, after I entered all of the characters of my regular-user password, I could press down on my computer keyboard’s “Enter” key, and, if I entered my regular-user password correctly, then see a large black rectangle leading toward my Leap-15.6 “desktop.”  Probably a good and new feature was that when I had my computer keyboard’s “Caps Lock” key activated I could see a notice above the area into which to enter my regular-user password reading “Caps Lock is on”.

Unusual phenomenon 2:  A second unusual feature was that the word “Password” on that screen was not in bright, white-colored letters, as the letters in my name on that same screen were white colored, but were instead in perhaps light-blue- or gray-colored letters against the otherwise dark-blue-colored background.

Also near the lower-left-hand corner of that login screen I could click and, if I wished to do so, select a different type of “Desktop Session” from the one already displayed there.  The initial lettering there was in white-colored letters.

Unusual phenomenon 3a:  But after clicking once on the particular type of “Desktop Session” displayed there, a column of choices appeared, all in black-colored letters, against the otherwise dark-blue-colored background.

Unusual phenomenon 3b:  And at least one of those black-colored choices appeared partly on top of the white-colored, already-set choice for “Desktop Session”.  

These four unusual phenomena on the login screen have occurred when “booting” into Leap 15.6 using either one of the following versions, of course one at a time, of the software package kernel-default:

6.4.0-150600.23.7.3.x86_64 from Leap 15.6, and the Leap-15.5 version “passed along” to Leap 15.6 of
5.14.21-150500.55.65.1.x86_64.

Question 1a:  Which ones, if any, of these four phenomena, were by design for Leap 15.6?

Question 1b:  And which ones of these four phenomena would you consider as unintentional and therefore due to one or more errors in my Leap-15.6 installation within VirtualBox 7.0.18r162988 (Qt5.15.2)?
Comment 1 Lawrence Somerville 2024-07-03 17:48:34 UTC 
The problems or potential problems I reported on https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1227357 and https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1226910 on the Internet might be related to the problems I reported in this so-called "bug" report.
Comment 2 Lawrence Somerville 2024-07-12 02:28:24 UTC 
Really I worked toward making the pointer arrow become and remain visible over the Lightweight X Windows System, Version 11 (X11) Desktop Environment (LXDE) window and, at least from my perspective, to improve on some matters in the Leap-15.6 login screen which I reported in my https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/, so-called “bug” report numbered 1227354.  There is some question of which one of the following operations which I performed on July 11, 2024 made the pointer arrow remain visible over the LXDE window.  So I discuss all of them here.  And I have all of the following paragraphs in this “bugzilla” posting numbered 1227354 in my “bugzilla” posting numbered 1226910.

There was a problem of an occasionally invisible pointer arrow reported in posting number 1 in the “thread” of postings on https://forums.opensuse.org/t/opensuse-12-1-1-gaps-between-panel-icons-in-lxde-2-invisible-pointer-arrow-when-choosing-desktop/74522/6 on the Internet.  Based on that report I decided to consider some settings within the LXDE of my Leap-15.6 installation.

My action 1: Among them via a software “button” on the left side of my widget panel or taskbar, similar to the “Start button” in a Windows operating system, then “System, Desktop Session Settings” on the “Automatically Started Applications” tab I clicked on the empty check box on the left side of “GNOME XSettings” to have a check mark placed in that previously empty check box and then clicked on an “OK” software “button”.  (GNOME stands for GNU’s Not Unix [GNU] Object Model Environment.)  Then, following the instructions on https://www.reddit.com/r/xfce/comments/6p8edb/mouse_cursorpointer_becomes_invisible_after_login/?rdt=62326 to attempt to make the pointer become visible,

My action 2: as a so-called “root” user I entered the command

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.cursor active false

and afterward received a “response” including

“No such schema ‘org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.cursor’”.

So “My action 2”, aside from possibly automatic writing in a log file, probably did not change anything else in my Leap-15.6 computer software.

From the Internet I learned that a so-called “display manager” is or makes the login screen in at least some Linux operating systems.  From the following command I could learn that the display manager running in my Leap-15.6 installation was the “X Display Manager”:

systemctl status display-manager
.
Given the unusual visual phenomena in my Leap-15.6 login screen which I reported in my “bugzilla” report numbered 1227354 and perhaps my switch to “GNOME XSettings”, it made sense for me to try a GNOME-desktop-environment-related display manager as a Leap-15.6-replacing login screen.

My action 3: So I chose the GNOME Display Manager, or gdm, and installed it in my Leap-15.6 installation via, as a “root” user, the following two commands

zypper refresh
zypper in gdm (or else “zypper install gdm”)
,
in which “in” in the above command is I think short for the word “install”.

My agreement to that installation resulted in 69 software packages being installed in my Leap-15.6 installation.

My action 4: Next, according to the instructions on https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Change_Display_Manager, I made gdm my Leap-15.6 display manager via the commands

update-alternatives –set default-displaymanager /usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/gdm

and afterward “rebooted” toward the LXDE of Leap 15.6.

Along the way toward the LXDE I needed to become acquainted with what to do on my new, Leap-15.6 login screen.  It gratefully looked good and more like I have been accustomed to login screens appearing concerning texts and a light-colored, almost rectangularly shaped edit control into which black or dark-colored discs would be entered corresponding to the characters entered via a computer keyboard for a password.  I first clicked on my Leap-15.6 user name.  That made the edit control for the password appear.  At first I thought that I had only the LXDE option for the type of desktop session into which I could enter.  But eventually at this stage of the login process near the lower-right-hand corner of that login screen I noticed a small icon appearing like a gear.  I clicked on it and saw a list of choices for the desktop session which included the Plasma (X11), LXDE, and some other choices plus one new choice for me of “GNOME on Xorg”.  With LXDE selected in the list of desktop-session options there, as indicated by a white disc on its left side, I could enter my Leap-15.6, regular-user password, probably briefly press down on computer keyboard’s “Enter” key, and then see an entry into the LXDE.  Gratefully there I finally I saw that the pointer did not disappear, but remained in view even after all of the LXDE desktop shortcut icons were displayed!  The cause for the appearance and remaining of the pointer arrow over the LXDE window would have been among my above actions 1, 3, and 4.  And the causes for the change of the display manager, or login screen, which I have begun to use, were my above actions 3 and 4.

I do not think I had to make these kinds of changes, which have all been external to openSUSE, kernel-default- and virtualbox-...-related source codes, after my year-2022 and year-2023 upgrades of openSUSE Leap.  Therefore its seems at least possible that such source codes could be prepared so that such changes external to such source codes would not have to be made.  But, writing figuratively and as one saying goes, it seems possible that there could be “more than one way to skin a cat.”

The “trio” of messages, including the strong one of “unsupported hypervisor” of VirtualBox 7.0.18, that I reported in my “bugzilla” report numbered 1227357 also appeared after performing my above actions 1-4, still using VirtualBox 7.0.18.  But so far, despite the look of severity of the message “unsupported hypervisor,” gratefully that message does not seem to be of any consequence in the LXDE of my Leap-15.6 installation

with version 6.4.0-150600.23.7.3.x86_64 of kernel default running,

the Graphics Controller of VirtualBox 7.0.18 set to VMSVGA (Virtual “Machine” Super Video Graphics Array), and

with my relying on the VirtualBox Guest Additions which I assume are included by openSUSE in that version of kernel-default and depending well on the installed software packages virtualbox-kmp-default 7.0.18_k6.4.0_150600.21-lp156.1.4 and virtualbox-guest-tools 7.0.18-lp156.1.6!
Comment 3 Lawrence Somerville 2024-07-12 02:51:05 UTC 
Sorry, I omitted a hyphen (-) in my above, July 11, 2024 posting; that is I should have written "kernel default" as instead "kernel-default".
Comment 4 Lawrence Somerville 2024-07-12 22:29:26 UTC 
Corrections concerning especially colors: On my GNU’s Not Unix (GNU) Display Manager (gdm) login screen, leading to my choice of the type of desktop session, the white-colored discs corresponding to the characters in my Leap-15.6, regular-user password are entered into a nearly rectangularly shaped edit control with a blue-colored border and a gray-colored interior.  Before entering my password’s characters via presses of the keys on my computer’s keyboard, the word “Password” could be seen inside that nearly rectangularly shaped edit control.