On a Fedora Core 3 system, from runlevel 5 there's a graphical login
screen. Clicking on "session" brings up a window with two choices:

1. Default System Session
2. failsafe_Terminal

Which is all well and good, except that until the other day there was
also Gnome. I've poked around, looking at /etc/X11/init, but it's a
bit over my head.

>From the Default System Session I'm able to start nautilus, but it's
awkward. I don't have the graphical switchdesk installed.


How do I get Gnome added to the list of session options, please?



Thanks,

Thufir

<hawat.thufir@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128109158.845166.155820@g44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
> On a Fedora Core 3 system, from runlevel 5 there's a graphical login
> screen. Clicking on "session" brings up a window with two choices:
>
> 1. Default System Session
> 2. failsafe_Terminal
>
> Which is all well and good, except that until the other day there was
> also Gnome. I've poked around, looking at /etc/X11/init, but it's a
> bit over my head.
>
>>From the Default System Session I'm able to start nautilus, but it's
> awkward. I don't have the graphical switchdesk installed.

Take a look at what runs at runlevel 5, as listed in /etc/inittabl. That
points you to the xdm display manager, which has configuraton files. If you
dig around enough, I'm sure you'll find exactly which config file is looking
for gnome, not finding it, and therefore not listing it.

Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
....
> Take a look at what runs at runlevel 5, as listed in /etc/inittabl. That
^^^^^^^^

is that /etc/inittab or /etc/inittabl, a typo, does it vary from distro
to distro, or what? I don't see the /etc/inittabl file, for what it's
worth, which might be significant in this case.

> points you to the xdm display manager, which has configuraton files. If you
> dig around enough, I'm sure you'll find exactly which config file is looking
> for gnome, not finding it, and therefore not listing it.

/etc/inittab file:

#
# inittab This file describes how the INIT process should set up
# the system in a certain run-level.
#
# Author: Miquel van Smoorenburg, <miquels@drinkel.nl.mugnet.org>
# Modified for RHS Linux by Marc Ewing and Donnie Barnes
#

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
# 0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
# 1 - Single user mode
# 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have
networking)
# 3 - Full multiuser mode
# 4 - unused
# 5 - X11
# 6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
#
id:5:initdefault:

# System initialization.
si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

# When our UPS tells us power has failed, assume we have a few minutes
# of power left. Schedule a shutdown for 2 minutes from now.
# This does, of course, assume you have powerd installed and your
# UPS connected and working correctly.
pf:owerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f -h +2 "Power Failure; System Shutting
Down"

# If power was restored before the shutdown kicked in, cancel it.
pr:12345owerokwait:/sbin/shutdown -c "Power Restored; Shutdown
Cancelled"


# Run gettys in standard runlevels
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

# Run xdm in runlevel 5
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon



/etc/X11/prefdm file:

#!/bin/sh

PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin


# shut down any graphical boot that might exist
if [ -x /usr/bin/rhgb-client ]; then
/usr/bin/rhgb-client -quit
fi

# We need to source this so that the login screens get translated
[ -f /etc/profile.d/lang.sh ] && . /etc/profile.d/lang.sh

# Run preferred X display manager
preferred=
if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/desktop ]; then
. /etc/sysconfig/desktop
if [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = GNOME ]; then
preferred=gdm
elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = KDE ]; then
preferred=kdm
elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = XDM ]; then
preferred=xdm
fi
fi

shopt -s execfail

[ -n "$preferred" ] && exec $preferred $* >/dev/null 2>&1

# Fallbacks, in order
exec gdm $* >/dev/null 2>&1
exec kdm $* >/dev/null 2>&1
exec xdm $* >/dev/null 2>&1

# catch all exit error
exit 1


The above file, /etc/X11/prefdm, at least mentions Gnome. Of course,
it also mentions KDE and XDM, neither of which were ever installed.
Hopefully this sheds some light? I looked at the file
/etc/sysconfig/desktop, but it was empty. So, the "if" of
/etc/X11/prefdm never does anything, I'm thinking, since it'll never
resolve to true.


Thanks,

Thufir

On 30 Sep 2005 12:39:18 -0700, hawat.thufir@gmail.com
<hawat.thufir@gmail.com> wrote:
> On a Fedora Core 3 system, from runlevel 5 there's a graphical login
> screen. Clicking on "session" brings up a window with two choices:
>
> 1. Default System Session
> 2. failsafe_Terminal
>
> Which is all well and good, except that until the other day there was
> also Gnome. I've poked around, looking at /etc/X11/init, but it's a
> bit over my head.
>
>>From the Default System Session I'm able to start nautilus, but it's
> awkward. I don't have the graphical switchdesk installed.
>
>
> How do I get Gnome added to the list of session options, please?
>
Start gnome-panel if it isn't already running, then look through the
menus for "Sessions". You can add a session called "Gnome", then log
out and log into that session.


--
Worlds are conquered, galaxies destroyed -- but a woman is always a woman.
-- Kirk, "The Conscience of the King", stardate 2818.9

On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 07:30:46 +0200, Bill Marcum <bmarcum@iglou.com> wrote:

> On 30 Sep 2005 12:39:18 -0700, hawat.thufir@gmail.com
> <hawat.thufir@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On a Fedora Core 3 system, from runlevel 5 there's a graphical login
>> screen. Clicking on "session" brings up a window with two choices:
>>
>> 1. Default System Session
>> 2. failsafe_Terminal
[...]
>> How do I get Gnome added to the list of session options, please?
>
> Start gnome-panel if it isn't already running, then look through the
> menus for "Sessions". You can add a session called "Gnome", then log
> out and log into that session.

I only have one session, "Default" in the
"Desktop/Preferences/More Prefernces/Sessions" thingie, yet in the
gdm login screen I do get

1. Default System Session
2. Gnome
3. Failsafe Terminal

-Enrique

<hawat.thufir@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128127986.085215.195860@f14g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...
> Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> ...
>> Take a look at what runs at runlevel 5, as listed in /etc/inittabl. That
> ^^^^^^^^
>
> is that /etc/inittab or /etc/inittabl, a typo, does it vary from distro
> to distro, or what? I don't see the /etc/inittabl file, for what it's
> worth, which might be significant in this case.

/etc/inittab. It's a typo.

> #
> # inittab This file describes how the INIT process should set up
> # the system in a certain run-level.

> # Run xdm in runlevel 5
> x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

That's the one.

> /etc/X11/prefdm file:

And that's the other one. It's a script file with way too many options,
designed to by default present various settings based on the
/ets/sysconfig/desktop configuration file.

> The above file, /etc/X11/prefdm, at least mentions Gnome. Of course,
> it also mentions KDE and XDM, neither of which were ever installed.
> Hopefully this sheds some light? I looked at the file
> /etc/sysconfig/desktop, but it was empty. So, the "if" of
> /etc/X11/prefdm never does anything, I'm thinking, since it'll never
> resolve to true.

Right, that's a configuration file you can *USE* to preset your default
desktops.

Follow the logic in all those "if" statements. I can't guess from here which
one triggers the display of and use of Gnome in your desktop settings, but
it should be traceable through your system and configuraton files.

I wonder if you play with your system much, and whether you add and delete
packages? Is gnome still listed you RPM packages, or if you accidentally did
a "yum remove" that removed it as a dependency?

Bill Marcum wrote:
....
> > How do I get Gnome added to the list of session options, please?
> >
> Start gnome-panel if it isn't already running, then look through the
> menus for "Sessions". You can add a session called "Gnome", then log
> out and log into that session.
....

Having the gnome-panel makes things much more tolerable, thanks for
that. I didn't realize that pieces of Gnome could run independantly.

I haven't yet found something like that, but am still looking. This is
in FC3.


Thanks,

Thufir

Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
....
> Follow the logic in all those "if" statements. I can't guess from here which
> one triggers the display of and use of Gnome in your desktop settings, but
> it should be traceable through your system and configuraton files.

I'm also in the process of backing up everything. I might just
re-install Fedora, or switch distro's.

> I wonder if you play with your system much, and whether you add and delete
> packages? Is gnome still listed you RPM packages, or if you accidentally did
> a "yum remove" that removed it as a dependency?

That's possible, but to the best of my recollection, no. The
gnome-panel and Nautilus are still "there", but don't appear as a
session option.



thanks,

Thufir

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 21:39:18 +0200, <hawat.thufir@gmail.com> wrote:

> On a Fedora Core 3 system, from runlevel 5 there's a graphical login
> screen. Clicking on "session" brings up a window with two choices:
>
> 1. Default System Session
> 2. failsafe_Terminal
>
> Which is all well and good, except that until the other day there was
> also Gnome. I've poked around, looking at /etc/X11/init, but it's a
> bit over my head.
>
>> From the Default System Session I'm able to start nautilus, but it's
> awkward. I don't have the graphical switchdesk installed.
>
>
> How do I get Gnome added to the list of session options, please?

Found it while searching for something else:

/usr/bin/gdm-binary runs /usr/bin/gdmgreeter, which reads the
configuration file /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf.

This file contains a variable, which is usually commented out,
so the default value applies.

For legibility I break the line before each colon, but it's really
on long line:

SessionDesktopDir=/etc/X11/sessions
:/etc/X11/dm/Sessions
:/usr/share/gdm/BuiltInSessions
:/usr/share/xsessions

These directories are searched for files named *.desktop.
The first two directories do not exist on my computer.
BuiltInSessions contains Default.desktop
xsessions contains gnome.desktop

The wording of the menu entries comes from the Name= attribute
inside each *.desktop file.

I addition to these two, gdmgreeter provides two entries in the
session menu, Last and Failsafe Terminal.

The file /usr/share/xsessions/gnome.desktop belongs to the rpm package
gnome-session.

-Enrique

Enrique Perez-Terron wrote:
....
> > How do I get Gnome added to the list of session options, please?
>
> Found it while searching for something else:
....


Thanks, Enrique. Really appreciate that.


-Thufir