Bug#513479: gdm: desktop does not appear after giving login credentials after upgrade 090129

[Jenny Barna]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.20.7-4
Severity: grave
Justification: renders package unusable


Today I did an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade which appeared to hang. I rebooted
and I can login via ssh but not via the console. It's a Sun with ILOM and if
the console is redirected one gets the same broken result. The initial login
screen does appear and seems to accept the username and password but then one
can get nothing else. Trying all the function keys revealed that the print screen
button could elicit a response. I also note an error:
Jan 29 12:24:19 charlotte gdm[5066]: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_gnome_keyring.so):
/lib/security/pam_gnome_keyring.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

but I think this may have been pre-existing.
I hope I am right this is a gdm bug as I usually operate via ssh not GUIs

ps -ef indicates
jcjb      7607  7581  0 13:13 ?        00:00:00 x-window-manager
jcjb      7653  7607  0 13:13 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session x-window-manager
jcjb      7656     1  0 13:13 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session x-window-manager
jcjb      7657     1  0 13:13 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 6 --print-address 9 --session
jcjb      7659     1  0 13:13 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/libgconf2-4/gconfd-2 6


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser                3.110             add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.24            Debian configuration management sy
ii  gksu                   2.0.0-6           graphical frontend to su
ii  gnome-terminal [x-term 2.22.3-3          The GNOME 2 terminal emulator appl
ii  konsole [x-terminal-em 4:3.5.9.dfsg.1-6  X terminal emulator for KDE
ii  libart-2.0-2           2.3.20-2          Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0            1.22.0-1          The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libattr1               1:2.4.43-1        Extended attribute shared library
ii  libc6                  2.7-18            GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2              1.6.4-7           The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3            1.2.1-5           simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2       0.76-1            simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdmx1                1:1.0.2-3         X11 Distributed Multihead extensio
ii  libfontconfig1         2.6.0-3           generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6           2.3.7-2           FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libglade2-0            1:2.6.2-1         library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0           2.16.6-1          The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0      2.20.1.1-1        A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgtk2.0-0            2.12.11-4         The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libpam-modules         1.0.1-5           Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime         1.0.1-5           Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g               1.0.1-5           Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0          1.20.5-3          Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  librsvg2-2             2.22.2-2lenny1    SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  librsvg2-common        2.22.2-2lenny1    SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libselinux1            2.0.65-5          SELinux shared libraries
ii  libwrap0               7.6.q-16          Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6               2:1.1.5-2         X11 client-side library
ii  libxau6                1:1.0.3-3         X11 authorisation library
ii  libxdmcp6              1:1.0.2-3         X11 Display Manager Control Protoc
ii  libxext6               2:1.0.4-1         X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxi6                 2:1.1.4-1         X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1           2:1.0.3-2         X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxml2                2.6.32.dfsg-5     GNOME XML library
ii  lsb-base               3.2-20            Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  metacity [x-window-man 1:2.22.0-2        A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  twm [x-window-manager] 1:1.0.4-2         Tab window manager
ii  xterm [x-terminal-emul 235-2             X terminal emulator
ii  zlib1g                 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12 compression library - runtime

Versions of packages gdm recommends:
pn  gdm-themes                   <none>      (no description available)
ii  whiptail                     0.52.2-11.3 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
pn  xserver-xephyr | xnest       <none>      (no description available)
ii  xserver-xorg                 1:7.3+18    the X.Org X server
ii  zenity                       2.22.1-2    Display graphical dialog boxes fro

Versions of packages gdm suggests:
pn  libpam-gnome-keyring          <none>     (no description available)
ii  locales                       2.7-18     GNU C Library: National Language (
ii  pm-utils                      1.1.2.4-1  utilities and scripts for power ma

-- debconf information:
  gdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm