Bug#940614: gdm3: GDM doesn't start (I see flickering on the console a few times until it decides it has failed)

[Simon McVittie]

Control: tags -1 + moreinfo

On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 at 14:42:38 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> After the upgrade to Buster

A note to other people who might reply to this bug: if you are using
GNOME 3.34 in testing/unstable, or if you have any doubt about whether
the bug you're seeing is the same one Stefan reported, please report a
*separate* bug. Please reserve #940614 for discussion of the bug that
Stefan is seeing in Debian 10 'buster'.

(Normally I would retitle the bug according to a characteristic error
message, but there are no logs here yet, so I can't do that.)

> I'm unable to get GDM3 working on this system (a thinkpad X201s).
> It fails at start.

Sorry, this is not enough information for a developer to diagnose
problems. Please check the systemd journal (or syslog) and
attach log messages from there, along with your gdm3 configuration
(/etc/gdm3/daemon.conf) and any other information that seems potentially
relevant.

When reading the journal/syslog, please send everything from the point
at which gdm first tries to start to the point at which it "decides it
has failed".

If there is confidential/personal/otherwise sensitive information in your
log, you can censor it, but please make it obvious where you have done so
(replace it with XXXXXXX or similar).

If you try this with different configurations (e.g. Wayland and X11)
please indicate which log applies to which configuration.

> I can start `xinit` from a root console login and it successfully launches the X xserver and the xterm.
> I haven't found anything in the logs which gave me any hint at the origin of the problem (e.g.
> the Xorg log in /var/lib/gdm3 doesn't have any EE lines, AFAICT).

I don't think the Xorg logs in /var/log/gdm3 and /var/log/Xorg* are
used any more.  All gdm logging now goes to the systemd journal (and
from there to the syslog, if you have rsyslogd installed).

In Wayland mode there is no Xorg at all, only gnome-shell acting as the
Wayland compositor, with Xwayland as a compatibility layer for X11 apps.
Both of those log to the journal.

> Architecture: i386 (i686)

It's possible that this is relevant: most people who test GNOME will have
done so on amd64 systems, so perhaps there is some i386-specific issue.

    smcv