GNU bug report logs - #35308
GDM refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
To: bug-guix <at> gnu.org
Subject: GDM refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 20:16:20 +0200

Hello,

I use Guix on top of Debian, with Gnome DE. Once I'm at GDM screen and
I log in successfully, nothing happens, and I'm back to GDM screen. The
only workaround I found is to add the following lines in my .profile:

    unset GI_TYPELIB_PATH
    unset XDG_DATA_DIRS

Then I can get past GDM. The fix doesn't work if i omit either line. It
doesn't make a difference if I use standard Gnome, or Gnome Wayland. It
doesn't make a difference if I use Debian Testing instead of Stable.

This is not a great fix because applications installed through Guix do
not appear in the Applications menu.

I wasn't able to get any error message to chew on. 

Help is welcome.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Message #8 received at 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: zimoun <zimon.toutoune <at> gmail.com>
To: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
Subject: bug#35308: GDM refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10
Date: Fri, 15 May 2020 16:49:03 +0200

Dear Nicolas,

Do you use Gnome from Guix or Gnome from Debian?

All the best,
simon

Message #11 received at 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
To: zimoun <zimon.toutoune <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#35308: GDM refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10
Date: Fri, 15 May 2020 17:02:26 +0200

Hello,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Do you use Gnome from Guix or Gnome from Debian?

From Debian.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Message #14 received at 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: zimoun <zimon.toutoune <at> gmail.com>
To: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
Cc: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#35308: GDM refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10
Date: Fri, 15 May 2020 17:19:24 +0200

On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 17:02, Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:

> > Do you use Gnome from Guix or Gnome from Debian?
>
> From Debian.

Since I am currently running Guix on the top of Debian stable with
Gnome installed, I could try to reproduce and investigate.
However, I am not a Gnome user...

Could you indicate me which configuration files I need to tweak?
My Guix stuff are in ~/.bash_profile.  I do no use XDG (yet) and I
have only tried to add export XDG_DATA_DIRS with ~/.profile only.
I have a guest account which log by default to Gnome but I have
noticed an issue.


Cheers,
simon

Message #17 received at 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
To: zimoun <zimon.toutoune <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#35308: GDM refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10
Date: Fri, 15 May 2020 21:38:29 +0200

zimoun <zimon.toutoune <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Could you indicate me which configuration files I need to tweak?
> My Guix stuff are in ~/.bash_profile.  

I use ~/.profile, as ~/.bash_profile is not sourced in Wayland, IIRC.
But there's nothing fancy in there, just a few exports, e.g.,

  export GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH="$HOME/dev/guix-packages"
  export SSL_CERT_DIR="$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/ssl/certs"
  export SSL_CERT_FILE="$SSL_CERT_DIR/ca-certificates.crt"

and the two unset directives mentioned in the bug report:

  unset GI_TYPELIB_PATH
  unset XDG_DATA_DIRS

> I do no use XDG (yet) and I have only tried to add export
> XDG_DATA_DIRS with ~/.profile only. I have a guest account which log
> by default to Gnome but I have noticed an issue.

Interestingly, I bisected my packages to the rather minimal:

  (specifications->manifest '("python-matplotlib"))

With a profile containing just this single package, I cannot go past GDM
if I don't unset the two environment variables above.

I assume there is something fishy in this package, or, more probably, in
its propagated inputs. WDYT?

Message #20 received at 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
To: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: GDM refuses to log in with propagated glib
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2020 15:03:36 +0100

Hello,

I digged further, and tracked propagated inputs from
"python-matplotlib". So, it propagates "python-cairo", which in turn
propagates "cairo", and then "glib". Also, no propagated input from
"glib" has an issue with GDM, this is the stop point.

So, basically, if your manifest is:

    (specifications->manifest '("glib"))

and you use GDM from a foreign distro (Debian 10 in my case), you cannot
log in.

The only workaround I know of at this point is to add the following
lines to, e.g., ".profile":

    unset GI_TYPELIB_PATH
    unset XDG_DATA_DIRS

Help would be appreciated at this point.

Regards,
-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Message #23 received at 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
To: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: GDM refuses to log into Gnome Shell (was: GDM refuses to log into
 Gnome on Debian 9 or 10)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 10:00:40 +0100

I went a bit further:

The issue is not specifically glib-related, but can be reproduced with
any package using the following:

  (search-path-specification
   (variable "XDG_DATA_DIRS")
   ...)

Hence, the following manifest can reproduce the problem:

  (specifications->manifest '("fontconfig"))

even though fontconfig does not depend on glib (but does search XDG_DATA_DIRS).
-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Message #26 received at 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Josselin Poiret <dev <at> jpoiret.xyz>
To: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>, 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: dev <at> jpoiret.xyz
Subject: Re: bug#35308: GDM refuses to log into Gnome Shell (was: GDM
 refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10)
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 11:52:52 +0100

Hello Nicolas,

Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> I went a bit further:
>
> The issue is not specifically glib-related, but can be reproduced with
> any package using the following:
>
>   (search-path-specification
>    (variable "XDG_DATA_DIRS")
>    ...)
>
> Hence, the following manifest can reproduce the problem:
>
>   (specifications->manifest '("fontconfig"))
>
> even though fontconfig does not depend on glib (but does search XDG_DATA_DIRS).

Someone on IRC had this exact problem (down to the fontconfig minimal
reproducer :) ), and thanks to your pointer about XDG_DATA_DIRS, I've
figured out what the issue is.

The XDG specification says that if XDG_DATA_DIRS is unset, a default
value of `/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/` should be used in its place.
On Debian, that env var is not explicitely set, so applications use that
default value, but when we prepend to it, it effectively removes both of
these directories from the search path.

As a workaround, you can do `export
XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/` right before sourcing the
guix profile in your .bash_profile.  I don't know what the best course
of action here is to have better OOB support.  Is it possible to have
env vars set by Guix have a default value if unset?

Best,
Josselin Poiret

Message #29 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
To: Josselin Poiret via Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Josselin Poiret <dev <at> jpoiret.xyz>
Subject: Re: bug#35308: GDM refuses to log into Gnome Shell
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 13:26:17 +0100

Hello,

Josselin Poiret via Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org> writes:

> Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:
>
>> I went a bit further:
>>
>> The issue is not specifically glib-related, but can be reproduced with
>> any package using the following:
>>
>>   (search-path-specification
>>    (variable "XDG_DATA_DIRS")
>>    ...)

[...]

> The XDG specification says that if XDG_DATA_DIRS is unset, a default
> value of `/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/` should be used in its place.
> On Debian, that env var is not explicitely set, so applications use that
> default value, but when we prepend to it, it effectively removes both of
> these directories from the search path.
>
> As a workaround, you can do `export
> XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/` right before sourcing the
> guix profile in your .bash_profile.

You're right. The above fixes the issue with fontconfig. Unfortunately,
the problem persists with the minimal manifest:

  (specifications->manifest '("python-matplotlib"))

So there's something else going on.

In order to fix the above, I need to put

  unset GI_TYPELIB_PATH

in my .profile, after having sourced Guix profile. Maybe this
environment variable also has a special default value when unset.

> I don't know what the best course
> of action here is to have better OOB support.  Is it possible to have
> env vars set by Guix have a default value if unset?

I think it is desirable, in particular for fontconfig, which is
a recommended package in the manual. The part of Guix responsible for
generating the profile file may be more careful when setting
XDG_DATA_DIRS, e.g., with something like (untested):

export XDG_DATA_DIRS=\
"${GUIX_PROFILE:-/gnu/store/…-profile}/share${XDG_DATA_DIRS:+:}${XDG_DATA_DIRS:-/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/}"

Regards,
-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Message #35 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Josselin Poiret <dev <at> jpoiret.xyz>
To: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>, Josselin Poiret via Bug
 reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, dev <at> jpoiret.xyz
Subject: Re: bug#35308: GDM refuses to log into Gnome Shell
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 13:33:16 +0100

Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> You're right. The above fixes the issue with fontconfig. Unfortunately,
> the problem persists with the minimal manifest:
>
>   (specifications->manifest '("python-matplotlib"))
>
> So there's something else going on.
>
> In order to fix the above, I need to put
>
>   unset GI_TYPELIB_PATH
>
> in my .profile, after having sourced Guix profile. Maybe this
> environment variable also has a special default value when unset.

Can you try again with `export
GI_TYPELIB_PATH=/usr/lib/girepository-1.0/` before sourcing the profile?

Best,
Josselin Poiret

Message #41 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
To: Josselin Poiret <dev <at> jpoiret.xyz>
Cc: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 Josselin Poiret via Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Subject: Re: bug#35308: GDM refuses to log into Gnome Shell
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 18:11:44 +0100

Josselin Poiret <dev <at> jpoiret.xyz> writes:

> Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:
>
>> You're right. The above fixes the issue with fontconfig. Unfortunately,
>> the problem persists with the minimal manifest:
>>
>>   (specifications->manifest '("python-matplotlib"))
>>
>> So there's something else going on.
>>
>> In order to fix the above, I need to put
>>
>>   unset GI_TYPELIB_PATH
>>
>> in my .profile, after having sourced Guix profile. Maybe this
>> environment variable also has a special default value when unset.
>
> Can you try again with `export
> GI_TYPELIB_PATH=/usr/lib/girepository-1.0/` before sourcing the
> profile?

Tough luck. The problem is still there.

Regards,

Message #47 received at 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Rafa Gálvez <rafa <at> esat.kuleuven.be>
To: 35308 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: RE: GDM refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2023 11:31:20 +0200

Hi,

 I ran today into this problem using Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS, and Josselin
 Poiret's fix worked perfectly:
 `export GI_TYPELIB_PATH=/usr/lib/girepository-1.0/`

 I installed Guix already some time ago, and the guix-install.sh script
 I used was very different from the one currently in master. So before
 applying this fix, I ran these functions from the script:
 sys_create_init_profile
 sys_create_shell_completion
 sys_customize_bashrc

 Then I added the export GI_TYPELIB_PATH to /etc/profile.d/zzz-guix.sh,
 restarted the laptop, and problem solved.

 Best,

Rafa

Message #52 received at 35308-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nicolas Goaziou <mail <at> nicolasgoaziou.fr>
To: 35308-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: GDM refuses to log into Gnome on Debian 9 or 10
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2025 18:26:19 +0100

Closing this as I haven’t been able to reproduce the problem during the
last couple of years.

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