MATE desktop

[Mihai T. Lazarescu]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 02:29:52PM +0200, Suvayu Ali wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 12:23:38PM +0200, Mihai T. Lazarescu wrote:
> > 
> > The discussion was about the high CPU drain on slow GPUs due
> > to gnome-shell, apparently triggered by gdm.  This means that
> > gnome-shell runs, not just is installed as dependency. :-)
> > 
> > I use gdm + MATE and have gnome-shell installed as dependency.
> > But it is not running, at least not after login.
> > 
> > At the next reboot I'll check if it is active while the login
> > screen is on, to contribute a test point to the CPU drain topic.
> 
> You snipped out the relevant part of my response.
> 
> <http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/gdm.git/tree/gdm.spec#n348>
> 
> This is what it says there:
> 
> - Require gnome-shell. We no longer use the fallback greeter.
>   (Since gdm 3.7.92).
> 
> If you look at the spec file, it includes a session file
> (line 283):
>
> %{_datadir}/gnome-session/sessions/gdm-shell.session
>
> In my understanding, this means there is no hard dependency.
> Of course the constant CPU load could be a gnome-shell bug,
> but the gnome-shell dependency does not look necessary from
> what I see.
>
> It is very easy to test actually; just rebuild the stock
> fedora gdm source rpm without that line (there is one more,
> but that just includes an icon) and see if gdm still works
> normally.
>
> Anyone care to test?

Tests:

1. reboot normally.

   Result: gnome-shell is started at the login screen:

    ps axuww | grep -w gdm

    root       631  0.0  0.0 296692  3160 ?        Ssl  15:04   0:00 /usr/sbin/gdm
    root       638  0.0  0.1 380308  5840 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/libexec/gdm-simple-slave --display-id /org/gnome/DisplayManager/Displays/_0
    root       947  0.4  0.3 149216 12156 tty1     Ss+  15:04   0:00 /usr/bin/Xorg :0 -background none -verbose -auth /run/gdm/auth-for-gdm-SbLhPY/database -seat seat0 -nolisten tcp vt1
    root       993  0.2  0.2 356968  8860 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 gdm-session-worker [pam/gdm-launch-environment]
    gdm       1073  0.2  0.3 712024 12184 ?        Ssl  15:04   0:00 /usr/bin/gnome-session --autostart /usr/share/gdm/greeter/autostart
    gdm       1076  0.0  0.0  16020   456 ?        S    15:04   0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/gnome-session --autostart /usr/share/gdm/greeter/autostart
    gdm       1077  0.0  0.0  24516  1048 ?        Ss   15:04   0:00 /bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --session
    gdm       1080  0.0  0.0 337740  3468 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/libexec/at-spi-bus-launcher
    gdm       1084  0.0  0.0  24228  1520 ?        S    15:04   0:00 /bin/dbus-daemon --config-file=/etc/at-spi2/accessibility.conf --nofork --print-address 3
    gdm       1087  0.0  0.0 127260  3352 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/libexec/at-spi2-registryd --use-gnome-session
    gdm       1093  0.6  0.5 766944 19920 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/libexec/gnome-settings-daemon
    gdm       1165  3.0  2.7 1283616 107216 ?      Sl   15:04   0:01 gnome-shell --mode=gdm
    gdm       1170  0.0  0.1 447948  5468 ?        S<l  15:04   0:00 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog
    gdm       1200  0.0  0.0 178304  2552 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/libexec/dconf-service
    gdm       1210  0.0  0.1 460288  4472 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/bin/ibus-daemon --replace --xim --panel disable
    gdm       1212  0.0  0.0 310396  3504 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/libexec/ibus-dconf
    gdm       1216  0.0  0.2 376736  8456 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/libexec/ibus-x11 --kill-daemon
    gdm       1264  0.0  0.0 236460  3424 ?        Sl   15:04   0:00 /usr/libexec/ibus-engine-simple

2. reboot without gdm-shell.session:

    mv /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gdm-shell.session /tmp
    reboot

   Result: graphical screen informing that something went
   wrong, try again.

3. restore gdm-shell.session and reboot without gnome-shell:

    rpm -e --nodeps gnome-shell
    reboot

   Result: no login screen.

Test 1 explains the issue originally reported by Ben Greear,
that gnome-shell starts due to gdm and is not usable on HW
without accelerated graphics:

    https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/2013-August/440219.html

Test 2 and 3 show that gnome-{session,shell} are started at
login.  The behaviour appears compiled in (not due to a run-time
test).  The dependency does not appear to be a packaging error.

Mihai