A couple of friends insisted me in installing Gnome-Shell, so I installed it to see how good it is and because I didn’t want to feel excluded. I had to upgrade my Debian from stable to testing and install gnome-shell by typing:

aptitude install gdm3 gnome-shell

After upgrading, I rebooted the PC and tried to log in to Gnome’s session, but I got the error Failed to load session “gnome” as shown in the above picture. After commenting this to one of my friends he said it could be related to my graphic card, and indeed  it was. So, I checked what graphic card I have:

root@buckbeak:~# lspci | grep -i vga
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G86 [GeForce 8400M GS] (rev a1)

Searching on Internet I came acrssos the Debian’s nVidia driver page for this card, and lucky me, It is listed. So I had to install these packages:

aptitude install nvidia-glx nvidia-xconfig

But the X server is not set up to load the nVidia driver by default, so I had to run the command:

nvidia-xconfig

This will create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf (remember that newer distros don’t have this file by default ) with all the information needed to load the nVidia driver, in particular this section:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

After that, I rebooted the computer and I could log in to the Gnome’s session:

References

• Fedora 15/gnome 3 failed to load session gnome-fallback
• Paquete nvidia-glx para Debian

I use Slim as my login manager because it’s lighter than GDM or KDM. In the other hand, I use Xfce because it’s lighter than Gnome or KDE. And finally, I use nm-applet to get connected to Internet (wired, wi-fi, or by mobile broadband).

The problem

Slim doesn’t unlock gnome-keyring, even though you add the following lines to the /etc/pam.d/slim file:

auth    optional        pam_gnome_keyring.so
session optional        pam_gnome_keyring.so  auto_start

These lines are suggested by the /usr/share/doc/libpam-gnome-keyring/README.Debian file, which is part of the libpam-gnome-keyring package. Thus, every time I login in nm-applet asks for unlock the default keyring.

The solution

You have to overwrite the /etc/pam.d/slim file with the following lines:

#
# The PAM configuration file for the SLiM graphical login manager
#

# Disallows other than root logins when /etc/nologin exists
# (Replaces the `NOLOGINS_FILE' option from login.defs)
auth       requisite  pam_nologin.so

# This module parses environment configuration file(s)
# and also allows you to use an extended config
# file /etc/security/pam_env.conf.
#
# parsing /etc/environment needs "readenv=1"
session       required   pam_env.so readenv=1
# locale variables are also kept into /etc/default/locale in etch
# reading this file *in addition to /etc/environment* does not hurt
session       required   pam_env.so readenv=1 envfile=/etc/default/locale

# Standard Un*x authentication.
@include common-auth

# This allows certain extra groups to be granted to a user
# based on things like time of day, tty, service, and user.
# Please edit /etc/security/group.conf to fit your needs
# (Replaces the `CONSOLE_GROUPS' option in login.defs)
auth       optional   pam_group.so

# Sets up user limits according to /etc/security/limits.conf
# (Replaces the use of /etc/limits in old login)
session    required   pam_limits.so

# Standard Un*x account and session
@include common-account
@include common-session
@include common-password

Next you log in into Xfce or any other desktop manager, your keyring will be unlocked.

References

• pls include /etc/pam.d/slim
• slim: doesn’t unlock gnome-keyring
• Arch Linux Forums / How to unlock keyring in Slim login session?

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español.