Arch Linux

LucasGossen

Member

Registered: 2018-07-19

Posts: 9

[SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

Hello, I have recently installed Arch Linux along with gnome. Everything worked fine, and there are no bugs except for this one: it almost never starts GDM automatically.
Therefore, as soon as the system starts, it gets stuck at a booting message. When it happens, I do this for starting the computer in graphical interface: I start a second terminal, and after log in text mode, I restart gdm via systemctl. The thing is that sometimes it works on the first try, but other times I have to keep trying

# systemctl restart gdm.service 

until the GUI starts. Sometimes, but almost never, GDM starts automatically after boot, without having to log in text mode.
Just after I installed gnome e gdm, I have enabled it using

# systemctl enable gdm.service 

I already tried to reinstall gdm and enable it again, but the bug is still there.
Here is the output for "# systemctl status --full gdm.service":

 gdm.service - GNOME Display Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/gdm.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-07-19 00:49:06 -03; 2min 10s ago
 Main PID: 321 (gdm)
    Tasks: 3 (limit: 4915)
   Memory: 4.4M
   CGroup: /system.slice/gdm.service
           └─321 /usr/bin/gdm

Warning: Journal has been rotated since unit was started. Log output is incomplete or unavailable. 

Any ideas?
Thanks!

Last edited by LucasGossen (2018-07-19 15:05:21)

robg

Member

Registered: 2015-03-05

Posts: 218

Re: [SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

Hello LucasGossen and welcome to the forum!

Please post the contents of your journal right after a boot with GDM failing to load. Also share with us the output of `lspci`.

coolPL

Member

Registered: 2018-07-09

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

LucasGossen isnt your issue connected with:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=238673 ??

LucasGossen

Member

Registered: 2018-07-19

Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

Hello robg and coolPL. Thanks for the attention!

LucasGossen isnt your issue connected with:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=238673 ??

Although it is not the same bug, it actually gave me an idea, and what didn't work for him, worked for me. I've edited /etc/gdm/custom.conf and uncommented "WaylandEnable=false", then "# systemctl restart gdm.service" and now the bug is fixed.
Thanks for the help!

Last edited by LucasGossen (2018-07-19 16:32:47)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,045

Re: [SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

I've edited /etc/gdm/custom.conf and uncommented "WaylandEnable=false", and now the bug is fixed.
Thanks for the help!

Well, no.  But you found a workaround.

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Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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tellmi

Member

Registered: 2012-12-03

Posts: 13

Re: [SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

My system just stopped booting without letting me log into any other console.
Thank you very much for your workaround!
It works for me like a charm!
We're technically deactivating Wayland and switch back Xorg, right? Which let's me assume,  Wayland is to blame for the trouble.
Does it mean,  we should re-comment that line with the next Wayland update?

salafrance

Member

From: Aelfang's Barrow

Registered: 2013-04-17

Posts: 43

Re: [SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

We're technically deactivating Wayland and switch back Xorg, right? Which let's me assume,  Wayland is to blame for the trouble.

Hmm... I've had what appears to be a similar problem on my desktop system for the past few updates.  Laziness and the fact that my system is almost always on, lead me to stop and start gdm manually after boot, which worked.  I finally began to look into the problem a few days ago, and then my main monitor died, which has stalled my efforts somewhat.

However, although the workaround of disabling Wayland does the trick for me, I also found that using Nouveau as opposed to the proprietary Nvidia driver, also caused the problem to go away. To be clear, this is without my needing to disable Wayland.

Furthermore, my laptop, which uses an Intel graphics chipset, has never experienced this problem.

I'll try to unearth some more detail on this problem as soon as I get a replacement monitor.

tellmi

Member

Registered: 2012-12-03

Posts: 13

Re: [SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

To finally close that topic:
Today I updated to gdm 3.28.3-1 and switched back to Wayland by deactivting this workaround. So far, my system runs well.
Wish you all the best!

yodermk

Member

Registered: 2012-07-17

Posts: 86

Re: [SOLVED] GDM does not start automatically

Unfortunately this does NOT work for me. Just tried with a fully updated system now.  I have to leave uncommented WaylandEnable=false....when commented again gdm does not start.

nvidia proprietary driver here.