KDE start troubles

[O. Sinclair]

On 14/08/2013 17:46, Michael Hirsch wrote:
> My work system has trouble when I first log in.  I'm running 13.04 on a
> 64 bit machine with plenty of RAM and CPU.
>
> When I first log in, the panel is mostly non-responsive.  I can
> mouse-over the icons and they will highlight, but clicking on them
> doesn't do anything.  I can't even get the K menu to appear.
>
> If I switch to a virtual console, I can start konsole displaying in my
> KDE session.  From within that konsole I run my "kdedkill" script which
> kills kded and then runs (kdeinit kde4) things are back to normal.  Not
> only is my panel responsive, but all the things I tried to do (clicking
> icons, opening K menu, etc) take effect.  The programs I clicked all
> launch and the K menu opens and closes.
>
> I think this started happening when I upgraded in June.  I have no clue
> what is causing it.
>
> Possibly related: emacs won't start in graphical mode, even if I turn
> off loading my .emacs file.  It does run in text mode ("emacs -nw"),
> however.
>
> Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
>
I had a similar scenario and had to revert to 12.10. Turns out that in 
my case it is because I have "hybrid" graphics with both Intel and AMD. 
As the amd proprietary drivers don't work for my card (though they 
should) I normally just switch off the AMD card or my battery life goes 
really bad.

This is done with the vgaswitcheroo method that due to a kernel bug does 
not work in the kernel that comes with 13.04