After totally messing up my gdm configuration by foolishly using `gdm-settings` (I didn't want the machine to suspend at the login screen for obvious reasons that doesn't play well with logging into it from other boxes), causing it to not properly even show a login screen, I've reverted back to running plasma and realizing it's been a long time since I last ran KDE and how nice it's gotten since then.

So, until I figure out how to wipe all gdm settings from the system (hint, I tried the "reset" option on gdm-settings and to blow away all dconf files that i could find on the disk, but odds are I missed something), I guess I'm now a KDE user until I move to a new system...

@gregkh I still run KDE/Plasma as I don't really find any good alternatives, but I do frequently dream back to mid-age Plasma5, that was last time things was stable for us, sure we are a bit different from everyone else, as we are multiple persons logged in at the same time while everyone else are the sole user of the computer...

@gregkh plasma is quite nice.

@gregkh I always was under the assumption that kernel hackers would be in the window-manager space rather than the desktop-environment space... I guess I was wrong 😆

@chergert I blew those away, still nothing :(

@musicmatze Been there, done that, gave up as I just want to get real work (i.e. kernel stuff) done faster.

@gregkh welcome to KDE land, the Plasma weather is nice and the temperature pleasant. Enjoy your stay !

@gregkh oh blargh, that's frustrating. I learned more about gdm than I ever wanted to in pursuit of exactly the same goal, preventing sleep while the login screen was displayed; I ended up finding the magic incantation for my case but I never expected that your outcome was even a possibility. Lot of room for improvement there, I guess. :-/

@gregkh ironically that's exactly the reason why I assumed window managers rather than desktop environments 😆

@gregkh @chergert Delete everything in /var/lib/gdm/ including the hidden directories.

I also had to deal with gdm after updating to Gnome 50.

@gregkh Hi! GDM maintainer here

One of the things gdm-settings does is overwrite some of gnome-shell's files in /usr. That's as safe as you can imagine. You may need to ask your package manager to repair the installed packages

It also corrupts /var/lib/gdm on GNOME 49+ so that entire dir needs to be emptied completely

It also touches GDM-related files in /etc/dconf, which may run afoul to your distro's defaults. Might be worth resetting that dir to what's there by default from the packages

@AdrianVovk Thanks for the hints. I deleted all of that and still no luck. But in digging in the lots, looks like it is gnome-shell that is failing to run, it crashes, so something is very odd.

I had pacman check all packages, and nothing seems out of the ordinary, so who knows...

I'll just live with kde for a bit, it's a nice change for a bit.

@gregkh Sounds a lot like the replaced files in /usr are causing gnome-shell to crash on startup.

Looks like pacman doesn't checksum the files and their mtime-based checks seem to have plenty of false positives. You may just need to reinstall the gnome-shell package. If that doesn't work, some logs would be appreciated (because I'm out of ideas what else gdm-settings could have possibly borked)

Of course you can also stay with KDE :) I appreciate that you're busy, and KDE is a fine desktop!

@AdrianVovk @gregkh You can use paccheck --sha256sum (part of pacman-contrib) to check the file hashes.

@AdrianVovk
We actually mount /var/lib/gdm as tmpfs on Guix and it drastically cut down on bug reports relating to incorrect files in the directory
@gregkh

@efraim @gregkh That's a great way to ensure that people that need a screen reader to be able to use their system are never able to do that on the login screen :/

There's a reason /var/lib/gdm is persistent. GDM's real home directory is on the /run tmpfs, the only thing we persist is what's necessary to persist for accessibility to work right

@AdrianVovk
Thanks for the pointer. I'll look into what we need to set in the config files so that's not a problem.
@gregkh

@gregkh just curious...You still using the pc that Wendel's of Level1Techs build for you ? (without re-installs?)

@tmpjg Yes, I am, but that's not the one I "broke", and I have another box from him sitting right here that I need to get up and running as the old one is showing its age...

@qwertviop @AdrianVovk there is no `paccheck` as part of `pacman-contrib` :(

@gregkh @AdrianVovk Ahh, it's part of pacutils, not pacman-contrib. I should really have double checked this before posting, sorry.

@qwertviop @AdrianVovk Thanks, found it, but no, nothing, all seems sane on the system. Oh well, KDE it is until I wipe this box...

@AdrianVovk @gregkh Isn't it possible to mix and match display managers and desktop environments though?

Or does Gnome DE have a hard dependency on GDM now?

@aspragg @gregkh GDM has a hard dependency on the GNOME desktop because GDM's "UI" is just a GNOME session running in a special "login screen" mode.

The GNOME desktop can be launched by any display manager, but the lock screen will only work with GDM. This is because the lock screen is exactly the same code as the GDM greeter UI

This integration is why GNOME can do things like let you type your password while simultaneously waiting for fingerprint, on both the login screen and the lock screen.