Ubuntu
gnome-session package

gnome-wm is missing a .desktop file

Bug #316958 reported by Sebastian Keller on 2009-01-14

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	gnome-session (Ubuntu)	Fix Released	Low	Chris Coulson

Bug Description

In jaunty gnome-session 2.25.3-0ubuntu1 contains a patch to change the gconf-key "/desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager" from "metacity" to "gnome-wm".
gnome-wm however is lacking a .desktop file which seems to be required by the new gnome-session for these components.
This results in the following error message:
gnome-session[9933]: WARNING: Unable to find provider 'gnome-wm' of required component 'windowmanager'

Also the patch is applied to /usr/share/gconf/defaults/10_gnome-session but /usr/share/gconf/schemas/gnome-session.schemas still contains:
<default>metacity</default>

This can be a little bit confusing if you unset the according key in gconf-editor, then it shows "metacity" but if you start gconf-editor again it shows "gnome-wm". However I'm not sure if this is a bug in that patch or if it is correct and the bug is in gconf.

Related branches

lp:ubuntu/lucid/gnome-session

Revision history for this message

Sebastian Keller (skeller) wrote on 2009-01-14:

I just found the according .desktop file in /usr/share/gnome/autostart/gnome-wm.desktop and moved it to /usr/share/applications/gnome-wm.desktop . Now the error message is gone.

Revision history for this message

Gabriel Ruiz (anakron) wrote on 2009-01-14:

It seems that the dekstop file install path must be changed. I' ll do a patch for it.

Revision history for this message

Sebastian Keller (skeller) wrote on 2009-01-15:

http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gnome-session/trunk/data/gnome-wm.desktop.in.in?limit_changes=100&r1=5050&r2=5180&pathrev=5180
That change from trunk also is needed so it does not show up in the menu.

Revision history for this message

Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson) wrote on 2009-01-15:

Yes, I just had a quick scan through the code and I can confirm that gnome-session only searches for desktop files in $XDG_DATA_DIRS/applications for launchers of components that are specified in "/desktop/gnome/session/required_components", so it wouldn't find gnome-wm.desktop - resulting in the error you see.

However, gnome-session still scans $XDG_DATA_DIRS/gnome/autostart and $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/autostart when building the list of applications to start, so gnome-wm still gets autostarted. Therefore, I agree that gnome-wm.desktop should probably be installed to /usr/share/applications, but this is a low importance bug.

Changed in gnome-session:
importance:	Undecided → Low
status:	New → Triaged

Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson) on 2009-01-15

Changed in gnome-session:
assignee:	nobody → chrisccoulson
status:	Triaged → In Progress

Revision history for this message

Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson) wrote on 2009-01-15:

gnome-session_2.25.3-0ubuntu2.debdiff Edit (21.9 KiB, text/plain)

Here's a debdiff that moves gnome-wm.desktop in to /usr/share/applications.

Sebastien - I don't think that the gconf issue you mention is a gnome-session bug. The package installs /usr/share/gconf/defaults/10_gnome-session and runs update-gconf-defaults on install, which uses this file to recreate the default gconf tree in /var/lib/gconf/defaults, which are the default values that get used for new users.

Changed in gnome-session:
status:	In Progress → Triaged

Revision history for this message

Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote on 2009-01-19:

thank you for your work there

Changed in gnome-session:
status:	Triaged → Fix Committed

Revision history for this message

Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote on 2009-01-20:

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-session - 2.25.3-0ubuntu2

---------------
gnome-session (2.25.3-0ubuntu2) jaunty; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/81_gnome_wm_install.patch:
    - Updated patch to install gnome-wm.desktop in
      /usr/share/applications as opposed to the autostart
      directory. gnome-session doesn't look in the autostart
      directories for required components. This doesn't stop
      gnome-wm from starting, but just results in an error message.
      Fixes LP: #316958.
  * debian/patches/82_gnome_wm_no_display.patch:
    - Don't display gnome-wm.desktop in menu
  * debian/patches/98_autotools.patch:
    - Updated.