Bug#1035899: org.gnome.Shell.desktop[…]: Unrecognized option: -initfd

[Simon McVittie]

On Wed, 10 May 2023 at 20:35:14 +0000, Al Ma wrote:
> Package: gnome-shell
> Version: 42.3.1-2
...
> Here are the versions of some relevant installed packages:
> 1:7.7+23, xserver-xorg 1:7.7+23, xserver-xorg-core 2:1.20.11-1+deb11u6,
> and xwayland 2:1.20.11-1+deb11u6.

You're mixing (outdated) packages from Debian testing/unstable with
packages from stable, which is not something that can ever be considered
fully supported: there is a nearly unlimited number of possible
combinations of packages, and it is not feasible to test them all.

gnome-shell 43.4-1 is the current version in testing/unstable. 42.3.1-2
is a version from July 2022.

The bug here is that whichever package passes -initfd to Xwayland
(actually libmutter rather than gnome-shell) should have an explicit
dependency on a version of xwayland that has that option. That can
be fixed in a newer version of libmutter (perhaps it already was, I
haven't checked yet), but if you are not upgrading GNOME packages like
gnome-shell from version 42 to the current version in testing/unstable,
then you will never receive a fixed version.

    smcv