Subject: Re: bug#35484: GDM failing to start stumpwm after merge

From: Timothy Sample <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2019 12:05:29 -0400

Hi again,

Timothy Sample <[email-masked]> writes:

> Hi Brett,
>
> Brett Gilio <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> Hey all
>>
>> I just reconfigured my system configuration after the big staging merge
>> to master. I use StumpWM.
>>
>> GDM seems to be starting just fine, but after this reconfiguration
>> stumpwm or X or something is crashing for me and looping me back to GDM.
>>
>> Where are the logs I can view for this? I see some message appear but
>> quickly disappear before looping back into GDM.
>
> GDM logs things to “/var/log/messages”.  However, it may not be useful
> in this case (do take a look, though).
>
>> If I can get the logs I can share them or try and figure it out myself.
>
> You could also share some other details about your config.  For
> instance, how is StumpWM started?  Do you have a “~/.xsession” script or
> does StumpWM provide a “.desktop” file that GDM needs to find?

After doing some testing in a VM, it looks like this is an issue with my
recent commit: 8caa458953eeac783c73a0e5aaa72842fe3914c9.

I added a placeholder desktop entry file, and even though I did my best
to make it invisible, GDM is still selecting it.  (I tested GNOME and
XFCE, but I guess they were preferred by GDM over the placeholder,
whereas StumpWM is not.  Maybe the has to do with how the names are
sorted.)  I will try and fix this today, but in the mean time, you can
either:

    • go back to using SLiM for now;
    • launch StumpWM from “~/.xsession”; or
    • install another WM, so that you can select StumpWM explicitly when
      logging in (using the little gear icon that shows up when you have
      multiple sessions available).

Sorry!

-- Tim