Bug#681087: gdm3 with black background

[Ben Green]

On Fri, 08 Aug 2014 12:47:39 +0200 Jaakov <jaakov at ro.ru> wrote:
> As for version 3.4.1-8 of gdm3 in wheezy, the bug is not reproducible on 
> my machine at the moment. However, I've heard of one more report for 
> another version of gdm3, so let us keep this bug report open.

Though I've not experienced exactly this bug, I've got exactly the same
symptoms in other circumstances. During restarts of GDM3 and in attempts
to change config.

Having had a look at how the permissions of
/var/lib/gdm3/dconf/profile/gdm get messed up, I've believe I've found
the culprit. The section of the init script which sees if the
configuration needs converting from gconf to dconf style settings:

   if [ "$needed" = yes ]; then
      rm -rf /var/lib/gdm3/dconf
      mkdir -p /var/lib/gdm3/dconf/profile
/var/lib/gdm3/dconf/db/gdm.d/locks
      ln -s /usr/share/gdm/dconf-profile /var/lib/gdm3/dconf/profile/gdm
      ln -s /usr/share/gdm/dconf/*-settings /var/lib/gdm3/dconf/db/gdm.d/
      ln -s /usr/share/gdm/dconf/locks/*-locks
/var/lib/gdm3/dconf/db/gdm.d/locks/
      # The configuration file in /etc uses org.gnome.blah gsettings syntax.
      # Convert it to org/gnome/blah dconf syntax.
      awk '/\[.*\]/ { gsub("\\.","/"); } ! /^#/ { print;}' \
        /etc/gdm3/greeter.gsettings >
/var/lib/gdm3/dconf/db/gdm.d/90-debian-settings
      dconf update /var/lib/gdm3/dconf/db 2> /dev/null
    fi


will write as root, making the directories in question unwritable by
Debian-gdm, and hence the window manager won't run.


Cheers,
Bem