Bug#1087442: gnome-initial-setup: started by gdm after an (dist-)upgrade and a reboot

[Jeremy Bícha]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2024 at 11:36 AM Patrice Duroux
<patrice.duroux at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was surprised that after an update on a server machine to unstable
> and a reboot, I was facing a gnome-initial-setup process on the server
> console display.
> Is gdm supposed to also run gnome-initial-setup for its own Debian-gdm user?
> I was also surprised then by some of the questions during the process
> if this is something expected.

If there are no regular users on the system, then GDM runs GNOME
Initial Setup in New User mode. (This actually is the only supported
mode for gnome-initial-setup upstream.) New User mode provides an easy
way to create a regular user account that you can then log into with
GDM. Otherwise, GDM would not show any users and could not really be
used.

Thank you,
Jeremy Bícha