Subject: Re: bug#41178: can't log into X anymore ( polkit )

From: Stefan Huchler <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 May 2020 01:16:34 +0200

So, after nobody answered to my problem and a guix pull / reconfigure
did change nothing I replaced gdm with slim with following changes:

(use-modules (gnu)
             (srfi srfi-1)
             (gnu system nss))
(use-service-modules desktop ssh xorg)
(use-package-modules bootloaders certs ratpoison emacs-xyz
                     suckless wm xorg emacs web-browsers)

...

 (services (cons* (service openssh-service-type
                   (openssh-configuration
                    (permit-root-login #t)))
                  (service slim-service-type)
                  (remove (lambda (service)
                            (eq? (service-kind service) gdm-service-type))
                          %desktop-services)))

and slim just works, it fixes the problem for me because I don't want to
run gdm on this low power machine anyway, but maybe somebody can
understand why slim runs and gdm not, I did not do much special I just
wanted to make my first guix install and got X running with the
light-desktop config with some minor unrelated changes like adding a few
packages and activate ssh. The only thing as I said was that I set a
password for root, but that seems also not to be such a untypical
step. So I wonder if that is a 32bit only problem else I would assume
many people would run into that. More or less the default installation
broke, sure not the graphical installation, with that I had problems
with grub, because if I remember correctly it assumed efi support.

It's strange to me that switching the display-manager fixes the problem
because that would imply that the gdm package is buggy, which again it's
in the default desktop-services variable.

But for me it's ok and maybe somebody else runs into that problem, then
maybe my bug report information helps.

Stefan Huchler <[email-masked]> writes:

> shortly after installing X and making the first few changes setting the
> root password and boom I can't login into X anymore.
>
>
> My configuration:
> /----------------------------------------------
> (use-modules (gnu) (gnu system nss))
> (use-service-modules desktop ssh)
> (use-package-modules bootloaders certs ratpoison emacs-xyz
> 		     suckless wm xorg emacs web-browsers)
>
> (operating-system
>  (host-name "XXX")
>  (timezone "Europe/Berlin")
>  (locale "en_US.utf8")
>
>  (keyboard-layout (keyboard-layout "us" "dvorak"))
>  
>  (bootloader (bootloader-configuration
> 	      (bootloader grub-bootloader)
> 	      (target "/dev/sda")))
>
>  (file-systems (append
> 		(list (file-system
> 		       (device (file-system-label "guix-root"))
> 		       (mount-point "/")
> 		       (type "ext4"))
> 		      (file-system
> 		       (device (file-system-label "home"))
> 		       (mount-point "/home")
> 		       (type "ext4")))
> 		%base-file-systems))
>
>  (users (cons (user-account
> 	       (name "XXX")
> 	       (comment "Me")
> 	       (group "users")
> 	       (supplementary-groups '("wheel" "netdev"
> 				       "audio" "video")))
> 	      %base-user-accounts))
>
>  (packages (append (list
> 		    ;; window managers
> 		    ratpoison i3-wm i3status dmenu
> 		    ;; emacs-exwm
> 		    xterm
> 		    nss-certs
> 		    vimb
> 		    emacs)
> 		   %base-packages))
>
>  (services (cons* (service openssh-service-type
> 		   (openssh-configuration
> 		    (permit-root-login #t)))
> 		  ;;(service xfce-desktop-service-type)
> 		  %desktop-services))
>
>  (name-service-switch %mdns-host-lookup-nss))
>
> /----------------------------------------------
>
> Authentication needed [...] intel-backlight-helper and a password prompt
> that I can't hit on, and somethnig with polkit.
>
> I think it propable had to do with me setting a root password. I unset
> it with password -dl root and only passwd -d root, but both didn't fix
> it.