Believe this is related, found in dmesg:

[ 513.384653] menu-cache-gen[1908]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f82f7a34f70 sp 00007ffc083ab690 error 4 in libfm-extra.so.4.0.5[7f82f7a31000+5000]
[ 571.799071] menu-cache-gen[2009]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f26b912cf70 sp 00007fff49e56cc0 error 4 in libfm-extra.so.4.0.5[7f26b9129000+5000]
[ 576.204471] menu-cache-gen[2015]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f344a509f70 sp 00007ffec82f6cc0 error 4 in libfm-extra.so.4.0.5[7f344a506000+5000]

I can confirm that this is a problem when installing a fresh kali-linux-lxde-2017-W02-amd64.iso image

I can also confirm this at a fresh built live image with LXDE environment.
Deinstalled and reinstalled LXDE with no success. Starting lxpanel manually in a shell is telling me, that is does not find desktop entries.

However, on a real and updated system the bug does not appear, I suppose, it might be "fixed" by some cached files.

Yes! Deleting /root/.cache/menus* and starting LXDE will not rebuild the menus. As noted in my former post: The reason, why this bug does not appear on an older installed machine is the caching of the menus.

So this IS defintely a bug!

Hans

The problem seems to be libfm-extra4. When you downgrade to this lib, the menus are back again.

Hans

Thanks for the investigation. Can you let us know which version of libfm-extra4 is working well and which is broken?

Hi Raphael,

that was a quick response! Of course I can: The running version is 1.2.3-1 and the broken one is 1.2.5-1. I took them from debian ressources, as in kali only 1.2.5-1 is available. And I have to admit, that I only checked for i386. The amd64 is still not checked by me, but I will do it soonish. Report follows then.

Hans

Hmm, checked now on amd64, but I could not create the error. At the moment I am using the broken version 1.2.5-1 (on debian/testing system), but I cannot verify the bug. I will boot to kali now (amd64) and search for an older KALI version of libfm-extra4, then install it and test again. Report follows.

Hans

Ok, sorry for the delay. Just now tested on kali-linux amd64. I downgraded libfm-extra4 to version 1.2.4-1, which is the last kali version before the broken version 1.2.5-1.

In my former post, I mentioned 1.2.3-1, but ignore this, as it was tested with a pure debian system.

Conclusion:
libfm-extra4_1.2.4-1 is ok
libfm-extra4_1.2.5-1 is broken.

I suppose, kali and debian are using identical packages, but to make it sure, I checked on both systems. Also 32-bit and 64-bit versions are broken.

This also means: Building a livefile system with LXDE windowmanager will NOT work at the moment! I suggest to change to XFCE4 for now (tested=ok), if you want build for slower machines as I do.

Maybe the version 1.2.4-1 should be put in the repo, as long as the last version got this bug. So live images would be ok.

Best

Hans

Thank you all for your assistance in pinpointing the exact issue. @rhertzog - do you believe it would be possible to add 1.2.4-1 to the repo so that we can get working again? Thank you in advance!!

The pronblem is, it will not help those people, who already got 1.2.5-1 installed, except the older version gets a newer version name.

However, it will help all people (like me), who are building a livefile kali with LXDE. At the moment, due to this bug, this is not possible. So I evaded to XFCE.

I am using an EEEPC, which is running on 1,66GHz, so LXDE is my first choice to get kali running fast.

Hans

The pronblem is, it will not help those people, who already got 1.2.5-1 installed, except the older version gets a newer version name.

However, it will help all people (like me), who are building a livefile kali with LXDE. At the moment, due to this bug, this is not possible. So I evaded to XFCE.

I am using an EEEPC, which is running on 1,66GHz, so LXDE is my first choice to get kali running fast.

Hans

@Hans

I installed:

http://cdimage.kali.org/kali-images/kali-weekly/kali-linux-light-2017-W03-i386.iso

EEEPC 701
900 MHz CPU
4 GB SSD
1 GB RAM

I needed to add 'forcepae' to the installer.

Kali light is XFCE.
It runs great on this old/slow/small EEEPC.
Ethernet and WIFI work.
The SDCard slot works.
Everything works!

The SSD has 1.2 GB free out of the 4 GB!

• enough to add a few tools using 'apt'.
• vim dc openssh-server xfce4-cpugraph-plugin

I setup a crontab calling shell scripts with notify-send.

With SSH I can access servers I maintain.
And openssh-server can SSH into the EEEPC.

Using Firefox:

• watch youtube videos and ted.com/talks
• check gmail and google calendar

I very much like the kali 'light' XFCE version.
It is a great starting point to build out a system.

Bill

Hi Bill,

I agree XFCE is nice, but IMHO LXDE is running a little bit faster than XFCE. I tested XFCE, LXDE and LXQT, but LXDE fit the best. However, I agree, XFCE and LXDE are close together in view of performance. On my system I can boot about 18 different OS'es from my SD-card (mostl are linuces, two are Windows based).
I am using XBOOT for it, as I can create categories with it (like "rescue", "pentest", "deaktop" whatever). It is similar to YUMI.

Everything is running in kali-linux on my EEEPC, and the wlan device is an Atheros card (good hacking tool).

I am building kali-linux several times a week. As I am German, it is German localized and added several tools, which are not in kali (like jNetmap or skype for example).

As I prefer LXDE, it is sad for me, that due to this bug it is not usable for my build (and of course, the next official kali-build LXDE will fail, too!).

Of course, I canb change to XFCE (that is what I am doing at the moment), but I am still looking for a fix in this lib to get my LXDE back. :)

Best regards

Hans

Andriy Grytsenko from debian bug list wrote:

......
This is pretty much bad news, since libfm-extra4 was not changed at all
since version 1.2.0, so apparently something went bad in menu-cache-gen.
Only noticeable change was debug build was disabled, that makes it faster
but at cost - instead of tests and soft-failure a crash will appear.
......

OK, so, as the code was not changed, as he told, here is a workaround, if someone wants to build a kali-live-image with LXDE.

1. Download libfm-extra4-1.2.4-1 for your architecture from http://http.kali.org/kali

2. Extract the package by using dpkg-deb.

3. Edit debian/control and change the version from 1.2.4-1 to a higher version than 1.2.5-1 (I am using 1.2.5-2, as it is close to the prior version).

4. Repack the package again by using dpkg-deb.

5. Copy the new libfm-extra4-1.2.5-2.deb to ~live-build-config/config/packages-chroot/

6. Now build the new image. After booting it (either from CD, or as in my case from an USB-Stick), you see, the menus in LXDE are back!

Yeah!

Hope this helps.

Happy hacking

Hans

@vanguard - Thanks Hans! Sucks since I don't roll my own image for each build but rather update my baseline and capture the image as soon as I have tested my functionality after updating.

I am in the process of including 1.2.4-1 as 1.2.5-2 into the live build. I cannot find the ~live-build-config/config/packages-chroot directory as you mention, and as it is shown in the Debian Live Systems Manual. Perhaps the Kali guys have changed this location? Current structure shown at: http://git.kali.org/gitweb/?p=live-build-config.git;a=tree;hb=HEAD

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: So 0x06 (http://docs.kali.org/kali-dojo/02-mastering-live-build) suggests to create this directory, but mentions /packages.chroot, then gives the 'mkdir config/packages' command.

Is 'mkdir ~/live-build-config/config/packages.chroot' the appropriate action (directory and placement)? Thank.

Just in short, what I do:

1. Boot a kali-live-build

2. Install live-build cdebootstrap and everything what is needed for building

3. Do a git install (just as the kali-website tells)

4. When you are in the live-build-config folder, do an "lb config". This will create the live-build folders.

5. Now you will find the ~/live-build-config/config/packages-chroot/ folder.

Hope this helps. Hint: You have to build in a real kali-environment. I am using the livefile. My own livefiles are built with all needed packages for building a new version (just including cdebootstrap, live-build, curl, git and language environment tools, like console-data)

Hope this helps.

Good luck

Hans

So it was actually easier for me to roll back to a previously captured image, and I used the following command (for anyone that needs to update and doesn't want their menus broke until this is fixed):

sudo apt-mark hold libfm-extra4

Thanks for your efforts Hans.

I opened a ticket upstream here: https://sourceforge.net/p/lxde/bugs/863/

I have just uploaded kali-menu 2017.1.2. Can you try again with that updated package and let me know if it fixes your problems ?

Thank you.

Hi Raphael,
of course Iam happily pleased to help and test.However, please apologize, that thi swill last some time, as at the mment I have very poor bandwith available (about 45kB/s), which makes a download and build an image a pita.

Next month it will be better, and I hope, then I can report results. Also I will test your new live-build version you loaded up, which should fix another isse reported by me.

Sorry for the delay, but I ill report as fast as possible.

Anyway, thank you for your all your efforts.

Best

Hans