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I just installed Arch Linux following a video tutorial from youtube for the first time. However, when I try starting the GNOME terminal it won't start. It will say Terminal at the top of my screen for a couple of seconds and there will be a loading symbol, but after a couple of seconds they both disappear and no terminal will appear. Because I can't load or start the terminal I can't do anything (I can't even answer the question to register to the Arch Linux forums). What am I doing wrong?

mudri
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Dirk
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    1. You should use the Arch documentation to install Arch: youtube guides are either wrong, out-of-date or both. 2. What terminal are you trying to start, and in what Desktop Environment? – jasonwryan Apr 27 '14 at 18:08
  • I am using the gnome desktop and am trying to load it's default terminal – Dirk Apr 27 '14 at 18:16
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    Make sure your [locale is set correctly](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Locale) (see the note in the troubleshooting section). – jasonwryan Apr 27 '14 at 18:21
  • How can I edit it without using a terminal? – Dirk Apr 27 '14 at 18:30
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    You really should be running a more newbie-friendly distro... You can edit files from the TTY using `nano` or `vim`... – jasonwryan Apr 27 '14 at 19:06
  • How did you get it to install at all without a console? `CTRL+ALT+FNUM` should get you a console in which you can edit whatever you like regardless of your desktop environment. @jasonwryan may have a point though - Manjaro might be more your speed. Still, don't let that discourage you. You mention the forums - I assume that means you've got a browser running like chrome or firefox or something - likely you can use a browser extension to edit text if necessary. My own terminal preference is for terminology which you can probably get with `pacman -S terminology`. – mikeserv Apr 27 '14 at 19:13
  • I'm having the same problem. Maybe the question was poorly phrased, but it's a valid question, and shouldn't be down-voted so much. If someone does have an answer, it could just start with “Press CtrlAltF2 and log in”. – mudri May 21 '14 at 16:16

8 Answers8

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I had the same issue after a fresh install of arch. I checked, double checked and triple checked the locale.gen and even removed every locale except en_US.UTF-8. I was just about to give up when I checked under settings, Regions & Language and discovered the language was not set even though I had run the command to set it. After picking english and rebooting it works fine.

James
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Sounds like you messed up your /etc/locale.gen file.

If you are english/US, comment out any of the other entries in that file, UNLESS YOU NEED THEM. They are for other languages. If you are american you more then likely only need en_US.UTF8.

Edit the /etc/locale.gen file and uncomment en_US.UTF8.

Comment out any others, unless of course you need them to be able to read.

Then run: sudo locale-gen

gnome-terminal should start then. If not install xterm and run gnome-terminal from it to see what is going on:

  • pacman -S xterm

  • Try CtrlaltF2, or exit X.

  • Then hit CtrlaltF1 to get back to X.

  • Hit AltF2 and type xterm

  • In the xterm window type gnome-terminal

jasonwryan
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stog
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  • How will I edit the `locale.gen` file? I have vim but that does not open it – Jdeep Nov 02 '20 at 07:49
  • You can use `gedit` but need to run it with root privs, so `alt+F2` to run a command, then `gedit admin:///etc/locale.gen` – steevee Nov 25 '20 at 09:59
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Unless you really care about GNOME terminal, the best way is probably to install a different terminal emulator. Pick one you like.

Remember that CtrlAltF1 gets you to the GUI. Then, press CtrlAltF2 to go to a TTY. Log in, and search the repositories for the terminal you chose. I chose Guake:

pacman -Ss guake

It should come up with something. For me, it was:

community/guake 0.4.4-3
    Drop-down terminal for GNOME

Then, take the name and install that package:

pacman -S guake

You should then be able to launch the application by switching back to GNOME, pressing Super (the Windows key) and typing the name of the terminal.

mudri
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This worked for me

in your ~/.xinitrc replace

exec gnome-session

with

exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session

Source: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=203918

don_crissti
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McKay
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  • THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ANSWER! I've been fighting this issue for the last week. Nothing worked, but this started it up right away. – Zulfe Jun 03 '16 at 15:49
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    This is deprecated now and should be considered an ugly, and unneccesary, hack. – jasonwryan Nov 20 '16 at 18:05
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I just meet the same problem here. I googled a lot, and I found a solution. If u can use Alt+F2(maybe laptop +Fn) , u can do:

1.login as root (use sudo 'ur pwd')

  1. $locale-gen "en_US.UTF-8"

then u should could open terminal succesfully.

Luce_yu
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For me gnome-terminal opened after running with dbus-launch gnome-terminal.

Afterwards I also run dbus-update-activation-environment --all and now it starts without a problem but I am not sure if the latter one did anything.

orestisf
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I just fought with this issue for an hour. It turned out that my problem was that LC_COLLATE was set to "C " (it had an extra space) instead of "C" in /etc/locale.conf.

Dan
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Jorenko
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I had the same issue and found the solution :

  1. Copy the file /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to your ~/.xinitrc
  2. Add just after the line "#start some nice programs" : exec gnome-session
  3. logout and restart startx
user148655
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