Help page black screen?

[chead1]

hi im using debian 12 when press F1 key for help , it gives me black screen and texts were not visible ? is it common issue or about debian 12 ?

im tried several desktops like mate and cinnamon.

 

[chead1]

anyone ? thanks

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

You need to give us more info about DE you're currently using and whether your OS is all defaults and if not what customizations you did so far?

 

[f33dm3bits]

Is that before or after you login into the DE?

 

[chead1]

ım using mate 1.26.0 version. make no customizations , all defaults.

here is picture from help page its turkish sorry

 

[chead1]

Is that before or after you login into the DE?

after login.

 

[chead1]

tried different themes but no luck either

here is similar problem but on ubuntu.

Ubuntu Desktop Guide contents not visible

Made a clean install of 24.04. When I click on the [question mark] Help icon on the dock, the "Ubuntu Desktop Guide" loads, but nothing is visible. The files are there, I can print them, ...

askubuntu.com

 

[f33dm3bits]

after login.

I didn't even know about F1 bringing up a help. I installed Debian 12 and 13 in a vm with both MATE and Cinnamon, when pressing F1 the help just shows up without the help screen being black. I would look into running the actual program that loads the help, for example with MATE that's "yelp". Run it from the command-line and see what error.

For example you could also run the following from the command-line and see what happens.

yelp /usr/share/help/en_GB/mate-user-guide/index.docbook

Or whatever language you want to use under /usr/share/help. Since you have it on multiple desktop environments I would think it something graphics card related.

 

[chead1]

same thing.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Since you have it on multiple desktop environments I would think it something graphics card related.

Maybe look into this? We can't guess what gpu you are using.

 

[chead1]

Maybe look into this? We can't guess what gpu you are using.

im using nvidia gt710 gpu. chaning to onoıbard gpu fixes and problem solves.

 

[f33dm3bits]

im using nvidia gt710 gpu. chaning to onoıbard gpu fixes and problem solves.

That's an old gpu, aka legacy gpu. Looks like the 470 Nvidia driver would support that gpu.

What's a legacy driver? | NVIDIA

What's a legacy driver?

www.nvidia.com

As you mentioned you are using Debian 12(Bookworm) it seems that driver isn't in the repos anymore but a higher version.

Debian -- Details of package nvidia-kernel-dkms in bookworm

If you still want to use that Nvidia gpu, what you could still try is installing the package "dkms" and then downloading a run file for the 470 driver but there's a chance the module won't even compile with newer kernels because it being such an old driver.

 

[Fanboi]

The stock 535 driver from the nvidia-driver package should work:

NvidiaGraphicsDrivers - Debian Wiki

wiki.debian.org

But with a GT 710, I assume you're not using the GPU for high-end stuff, so I'd give the nouveau driver a spin if the 535 won't work.

I would recommend caution installing the driver direct from Nvidia as you need to recompile every kernel upgrade (unlikely gonna be too frequent now 12 is oldstable), which is a PITA.

... Or if this is a new-ish install, maybe just move to Debian 13 and save yourself a headache.

 

[IbChristian]

Hi New Linux user here.

I'm having the same problem. I'm on Mint MATE 22.3. The top "Title bar" shows but everything else is black.

 

[Condobloke]

Hi New Linux user here.

I'm having the same problem. I'm on Mint MATE 22.3. The top "Title bar" shows but everything else is black.

Please, open a fresh topic.

 

[IbChristian]

OK, I'll do that. I just didn't want to crowd the forum with redundant threads.