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Topic: [SOLVED] GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit) (Read 3018 times) previous topic - next topic
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[SOLVED] GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Hi, I was trying to move from void linux to artix and when setting up GNOME + GDM I faced this issue where GDM would refuse to run when the service is enabled, leaving me at the shell, no black screen or anything.

The log folder in
Code: [Select]
/var/logs/gdm
is empty each time I run it.

The steps I did are as such:
Code: [Select]
pacman -S gnome gdm gdm-runit
ln -s /etc/runit/sv/gdm /var/run/runit/service/
uncomment WaylandEnable=false in /etc/gdm/custom.conf

How could I fix this issue? Thanks in advance!

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #1
Ouch, I can reproduce this (s6 not runit, but it shouldn't matter). To make matters worse, simply running "gdm" in a virtual console appears to do nothing.

It may be related to this issue. I can see if some of the workarounds listed in there work later.

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #2
Hi, how are we looking on this issue? Do we know what's causing it yet?

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #3
Sadly no, I have not been able to get gdm to start at all. Simply executing gdm as root does nothing. The systemd service file indicates that it's a dbus service which makes it different than a simple service, but I would still expect it to at least give a failure message or something.

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #4
i start sddm via xdm service, not directly.... can you not start gdm via xdm as we in openrc?  just a idea...


Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #5
I haven't tried starting gdm with xdm, but I doubt that it will make a difference, seeing as running gdm as root doesn't have any effect, and doesn't log anything to the console.


I've just built gdm from source at 3.34.1: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm.git, and about to kill lightdm to give this a go., possibly flexing my very rusty C-foo to shove some console.logs in there if it doesn't work. ~I'll let you know how I get on.~

gdm from source has the same result, no console output, no nuffin. If anyone else wants to try this, I only managed to build it after installing plymouth (which now means I have a bunch of SystemD on my machine, but there we go), gobject-introspection and gobject-introspection-runtime. plymouth-nosystemd doesn't install on my machine. I might break out the old C-skillz after work if I had time, but suspect this is the best way to diagnose this problem.

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #6
I have tried gdm while compiling it with the --disable-systemd-journal option as well and it still doesn't start (no console output or anything). If anyone happens to figure out the right compile options to get this to work, that would be much appreciated. gdb seems to indicate that it somehow gets stuck in a loop in glib somewhere.

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #7
I have tried gdm while compiling it with the --disable-systemd-journal option as well and it still doesn't start (no console output or anything). If anyone happens to figure out the right compile options to get this to work, that would be much appreciated. gdb seems to indicate that it somehow gets stuck in a loop in glib somewhere.

Remind me later today in IRC to take a look at build

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #8
Thanks to @alium, a new gdm with a patch from gentoo has been built and pushed into the repos now. We both can confirm that it works now with the appropriate init script (runit on his machine; s6 for mine). One thing to note is that manually starting it will not work because a couple of run directories need to be created beforehand. This is done in the init script, so just use that.

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #9
Thanks all for this. Confirming this works.

On another note, is there an issue tracker for Artix? Should we be using the issues tracker in gitea for this sort of thing? It'd be good to see at a glance whether these issues have been solved.

Re: GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #10
please mark this as solved :-)

Re: [SOLVED] GDM wont start when service is enabled (runit)

Reply #11
Please make sure you are fully up to date (pacman -Syu). This was only fixed recently so if you're using an iso, it won't work.