[arch-general] gdm not found when booting into runlevel 5

Nigel Henry cave.dnb2m97pp at aliceadsl.fr
Thu Jun 19 18:21:48 EDT 2008


On Thursday 19 June 2008 21:48, Aaron Griffin wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 2:39 PM, David Rosenstrauch <darose at darose.net> 
wrote:
> > Aaron Griffin wrote:
> >> On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Nigel Henry
> >>
> >> <cave.dnb2m97pp at aliceadsl.fr> wrote:
> >>> Is there some file that I need to edit, in order to use gdm as the
> >>> display
> >>> manager?
> >>>
> >>> Nigel.
> >>
> >> You need to edit /etc/inittab
> >
> > Not saying you're wrong, but personally I've never edited the inittab
> > file, and I'm still able to start whatever DM I want.
> >
> > Just adding the appropriate DM (e.g., gdm, kdm, slim, etc.) to the end of
> > the DAEMONS line in rc.conf has always done the trick for me.
>
> You're correct - I personally don't edit inittab either. I use rc.conf
> for slim as well. But, his question was regarding "which file to
> edit", so I figured I'd answer directly.

Now I don't remember doing all this stuff on my first install of Archlinux 
(Don't Panic), but I've just looked at /etc/group in my first install, and 
copied the gdm line to my new install, as below.
gdm:x:1001:

Now when I bootup, and appending the kernel line to use runlevel 5, I get the 
screen for gdm. So far so good. I enter the username, and password, but all i 
get is a blue screen with a white window which looks like a KDE Konsole in 
the top left corner. The mouse cursor is stuck in the middle of the screen, 
and can't be moved.

Well don't ask me why, but I've left it for a few minutes with this window 
showing in the top left corner, then done a ctrl alt backspace, and now the 
mouse pointer is active on the gdm login screen. I select a session (KDE), 
enter username, password, and KDE starts up, and is working as it always has 
done. All a bit mind boggling. I may be speaking too soon, as I havn't 
rebooted it yet, but I'll come back if there are further problems. Rock n 
Roll eh!!

Nigel.




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