Bug#731054: gdm3 does not start from login and starts very slowly with 'startx'

[Petri Kaurinkoski]

Package: gdm3
Version: 3.8.4-6
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

Roughly a week ago I updated my Debian/testing environment and run into
serious problems with the gdm. After waiting for a possible fix I  
reported
a bug (730806) and as a result I came a step further by removing gdm,
installing gdm3 and installing gnome-desktop with

            tasksel install gnome-desktop --new-install

I did the tasksel, because I figured out it should bring me back to  
modern
ages from something that most probably was a very outdated system.

At the moment I have updated everything aptitude proposes for  
updating, but
the fundamental problem of not getting a properly functioning  
graphical UI
still remains. The symptoms and observations are as follows:

 >From boot, I get a login screen which responds to any user interaction
extremely slowly. It allows me to log in - I think - but after that  
nothing
visible happens. What I can see from the process listing when logged in
with ssh from another host is gnome-keyring-daemon running for a  
while, and
then disappearing from the process list. I can not interact with the  
GUI,
there is no reponse to any mouse events, and the only thing making a  
change
is Ctrl-Alt-Backspace getting me out.

Logging in from a virtual screen and giving the command 'startx'  
produces
eventually a graphical session, but it is extremely slow and in practice
useless. The slowness is everywhere - like in the login greeter  
described
above - but in the end, I seem to have a running gnome-session going on.

Either way, something is wrong, and all this started on Friday a week  
ago
when I did my ordinary updating of the system. The host itself is a nine
years old athlon, but there should be no reason why everything just gets
slow like this.

I looked through the list of bugs Debian archives, and 730160 looked at
first very similar, proposed solution did not apply. We may still be
looking at the same root cause, but I could not tell.

Could you please help me out with this.

Best regards,

Petri Kaurinkoski

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
   APT prefers testing
   APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.11-2-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages gdm3 depends on:
ii  accountsservice                              0.6.34-2
ii  adduser                                      3.113+nmu3
ii  dconf-cli                                    0.18.0-1
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend                      0.18.0-1
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]                        1.5.52
ii  gir1.2-gdm3                                  3.8.4-6
ii  gnome-session [x-session-manager]            3.8.4-3
ii  gnome-session-bin                            3.8.4-3
ii  gnome-session-flashback [x-session-manager]  3.6.2-2
ii  gnome-settings-daemon                        3.8.5-2
ii  gnome-shell                                  3.8.4-5
ii  gnome-terminal [x-terminal-emulator]         3.10.1-1
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas                    3.8.2-2
ii  libaccountsservice0                          0.6.34-2
ii  libatk1.0-0                                  2.10.0-2
ii  libaudit1                                    1:2.3.2-2
ii  libc6                                        2.17-93
ii  libcairo-gobject2                            1.12.16-2
ii  libcairo2                                    1.12.16-2
ii  libcanberra-gtk3-0                           0.30-2
ii  libcanberra0                                 0.30-2
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0                           2.28.2-1
ii  libgdm1                                      3.8.4-6
ii  libglib2.0-0                                 2.36.4-1
ii  libglib2.0-bin                               2.36.4-1
ii  libgtk-3-0                                   3.8.4-1
ii  libpam-modules                               1.1.3-9
ii  libpam-runtime                               1.1.3-9
ii  libpam-systemd                               204-5
ii  libpam0g                                     1.1.3-9
ii  libpango-1.0-0                               1.36.0-1
ii  libpangocairo-1.0-0                          1.36.0-1
ii  librsvg2-common                              2.40.0-1
ii  libselinux1                                  2.2.1-1
ii  libwrap0                                     7.6.q-24
ii  libx11-6                                     2:1.6.2-1
ii  libxau6                                      1:1.0.8-1
ii  libxdmcp6                                    1:1.1.1-1
ii  libxrandr2                                   2:1.4.1-1
ii  lsb-base                                     4.1+Debian12
ii  metacity [x-window-manager]                  1:2.34.13-1
ii  upower                                       0.9.23-2+b1
ii  x11-common                                   1:7.7+4
ii  x11-xserver-utils                            7.7+1

Versions of packages gdm3 recommends:
ii  at-spi2-core               2.10.1-1
ii  desktop-base               7.0.3
ii  gnome-icon-theme           3.10.0-1
ii  gnome-icon-theme-symbolic  3.10.1-1
ii  x11-xkb-utils              7.7~1
ii  xserver-xephyr             2:1.14.3-4
ii  xserver-xorg               1:7.7+4
ii  zenity                     3.8.0-1

Versions of packages gdm3 suggests:
ii  gnome-orca            3.4.2-2
ii  libpam-gnome-keyring  3.8.2-2

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/gdm3/greeter.gsettings changed:
[org.gnome.login-screen]
logo='/usr/share/icons/gnome/48x48/places/debian-swirl.png'
fallback-logo='/usr/share/icons/gnome/48x48/places/debian-swirl.png'
disable-restart-buttons=false


-- debconf information:
   gdm3/daemon_name: /usr/sbin/gdm3
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm3