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Bug 597457 - gdm does not offer "default" or "failsafe" sessions
Summary: gdm does not offer "default" or "failsafe" sessions
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Classification: Red Hat
Component: gdm
Version: 6.0
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
medium
Target Milestone: rc
: ---
Assignee: jmccann
QA Contact: desktop-bugs@redhat.com
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2010-05-29 01:35 UTC by Quentin Barnes
Modified: 2015-01-14 23:25 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-06-07 17:56:10 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Quentin Barnes 2010-05-29 01:35:54 UTC 
Description of problem:
At the gdm login screen after selecting a login account, down at
the bottom bar it presents possible sessions in a "Sessions" box.
Only two are presented, "GNOME" and "KDE".  Under RHEL5, "Default
System Session", "Failsafe terminal", and "Last session" were also
available.

In my environment, I have my ~/.dmrc file's "Session" variable
set to "default" because I run my own X login session.  With
RHEL6, it will not let me have this session and upon loggin in
will overwrite my ~/.dmrc file with "gnome".

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
gdm-2.28.2-5.el6.x86_64

How reproducible:
100%


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to gdm login screen and select an account
2. Click on "Sessions" box at bottom of screen.
3.
  
Actual results:
Just "KDE" and "GNOME" are presented.

Expected results:
To be able to at least have "Default System Session" and "Failsafe
terminal", and "Last session" as with RHEL5 systems.

Additional info:
I worked around this gdm limitation by copying the file
/usr/share/gdm/BuiltInSessions/default.desktop from a RHEL5 file
system to same place on the RHEL6 file system.  Now I can at
least select "Default System Session" from gdm now and it
does the right thing -- "default" is passed as argument 1 to
/etc/X11/xinit/Xsession when it is started.

I don't know why default.desktop is missing from RHEL6. if under
this version of gdm there's a new way or different way now to select
or present "Default System Session" that I just don't know about,
please let me know.
Comment 2 RHEL Program Management 2010-06-07 16:07:50 UTC 
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux major release.  Product Management has requested further
review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux Major release.  This request is not yet committed for
inclusion.
Comment 3 jmccann 2010-06-07 17:56:10 UTC 
This functionality, with the exception of Failsafe, is now provided by the xorg-x11-xinit-session package.  For Failsafe you can create a new desktop file to provide such a session.
Comment 4 Quentin Barnes 2010-06-07 18:13:36 UTC 
Ah, the xorg-x11-xinit-session RPM is not part of the RHEL6 Beta release.  For a "Beta" release, it's not very functionally complete dropping hundreds of RPMs.

I hope Red Hat considers adding a package to restore the failsafe functionality.  It's used very infrequently, but is very helpful when it is needed.
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