my gui's gone...

[pseud]

Hi Folks

I decided to tidy up and rationalise my personal machine accounts with my little server machine accounts and ran the following:

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# usermod -u 1003 guest
# usermod -u 1002 joe
# usermod -u 1001 blow
# groupmod -g 1003 guest
# groupmod -g 1002 joe
# groupmod -g 1001 blow
# find / -user 1002 -execdir chown 1003 '{}' \;
# find / -group 1002 -execdir chgrp 1003 '{}' \;
# find / -user 1001 -execdir chown 1002 '{}' \;
# find / -group 1001 -execdir chgrp 1002 '{}' \;
# find / -user 1000 -execdir chown 1001 '{}' \;
# find / -group 1000 -execdir chgrp 1001 '{}' \;

That seemed to work for the server with no graphics, but...
Now I've got no login on my lappy.
I should have known better...
I attempted a resurrection of gnome without success:

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# dpkg-reconfigure gnome-shell
# reboot
# apt reinstall libpam-modules libpam-modules-bin libpam-runtime libpam0g
# reboot
# dpkg-reconfigure gdm3
# apt install --reinstall gdm3 gnome-shell
# dpkg-reconfigure gdm3
# dpkg-reconfigure gnome-shell

This is what looks relevant to me from journalctl:

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...
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine systemd[1]: Started User Manager for UID 118.
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine systemd[1]: Started Session c1 of user Debian-gdm.
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine systemd[1004]: Started D-Bus User Message Bus.
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine gsettings[1025]: unable to open file '/usr/share/gdm/greeter-dconf-defaults': Failed to open file “/usr/share/gdm/greeter-dconf-defaults”: open() failed: No such file or directory; expect degraded performance
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine gnome-session-b[1024]: unable to open file '/usr/share/gdm/greeter-dconf-defaults': Failed to open file “/usr/share/gdm/greeter-dconf-defaults”: open() failed: No such file or directory; expect degraded performance
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine gnome-session[1024]: _IceTransmkdir: ERROR: euid != 0,directory /tmp/.ICE-unix will not be created.
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine gnome-session-binary[1024]: Entering running state
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine /usr/sbin/gpm[813]: *** warning [daemon/old_main.c(254)]:
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine /usr/sbin/gpm[813]: Data on strange file descriptor 4
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine gnome-session[1024]: Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine gnome-session-f[1037]: Cannot open display: 
Aug 09 17:17:17 morgansmachine ModemManager[728]: <info>  Couldn't check support for device '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.2/0000:02:00.0': not supported by any plugin
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine systemd[1004]: Stopping D-Bus User Message Bus...
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine systemd[1004]: dbus.service: Succeeded.
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine systemd[1004]: Stopped D-Bus User Message Bus.
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine systemd[1004]: Started D-Bus User Message Bus.
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine gdm-launch-environment][922]: pam_unix(gdm-launch-environment:session): session closed for user Debian-gdm
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine systemd[1]: session-c1.scope: Succeeded.
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine gdm3[904]: Child process -1020 was already dead.
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine gdm3[904]: Child process -1020 was already dead.
Aug 09 17:17:19 morgansmachine systemd-logind[721]: Session c1 logged out. Waiting for processes to exit.
...

If anyone can suggest a way back from the brink and to a functioning gnome-shell, it'd be really really appreciated.

Thanks

[pseud]

From the log, I figure a good start would be (re?)instakking

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/usr/share/gdm/greater-dconf-defaults

But,

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# apt-file search /usr/share/gdm/greater-dconf-defaults

returns nothing, as does

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# dpkg -S '/usr/share/gdm/greater-dconf-defaults'

So, it seems a file's missing that can't be found. Does anyone know what package provides that file?

[CwF]

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dpkg-reconfigure gdm

maybe...Or reinstakk it!

[pseud]

maybe...Or reinstakk it!

Done that, see OP:

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# apt install --reinstall gdm3 gnome-shell

Thx

[stevepusser]

Reinstakk from your full backup that you rationakky made before you rationalized your instakk.

Out of curiosity, what problems caused you to undertake this procedure?

[CwF]

Out of curiosity

I've done similar, but don't remember doing it in such a complicated way - no manual permission changes. I think usermod took care of it by renaming users instead of changing existing uid's. So backup and clean and restore as user..? I've mention before the uid's are relevant to the install, not the external world. When multiple boxes access a common box it is a concern if all want common access, or unique access. So the common box needs reference to all users, however it needs to be.

At one point I've used a virtual usb (not ext4) for access to intentionally break the meta data, access is controlled to the drive. If the various home backups are there, their former ownership is gone and the restore inherits any guid from the user pulling in the files...

As for greeters I try not to use them. At the time lightdm didn't have an issue.
I think it is a case of more than one way to do it, more than one way to break it, more than one way to fix it.