Well, darn. I was hoping that a "startx" would at least
output something that could
give a clue as to why plasmashell is crashing.
He, you are right, I have something in the terminal:
xauth: file /home/fred/.serverauth.1393 does not exist
X.Org X Server 1.19.3
Release Date: 2017-03-15
...
xf86EnableIOPorts: failed to set IOPL for I/O (Operation not permitted)
xset: bad font path element (#2), possible causes are:
Directory does not exist or has wrong permissions
Directory missing fonts.dir
Incorrect font server address or syntax
startkde: Starting up...
dbus-update-activation-environment: warning: error sending
to systemd: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process
org.freedesktop.systemd1 exited with status 1
vmware-user: could not open /proc
.KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/bin/kdeinit5 from
kdeinitsock_file=/run/user/1000/kdeinit5__0
Warning: conncect() failed: : No such file or directory
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/bin/kdeinit5 directly
KCrash: Applicatino 'kdeinit5' crashing...
kdeinit5: Communication error with launcher. Exiting!
.KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/libexec/drkonqi from kdeinit
(II) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.
Warning: connect() failed: : Connection refused
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/libexec/drkonqi directly
Shot in the dark.... Are any of your file systems full?
nothing full
In any event, I think it would be a good idea to ask the fine folks
on the KDE list
for their advice as to how to figure out why plasmashell is crashing.
you're right, I will.
Frédéric