Comments on: How to Downgrade Gnome Display Manager 2.28 to 2.20 in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 23:05:45 +0000

Upgraded Ubuntu from 9.04 to 9.10. Ever since upgrading I couldn’t stay logged (with Xwindows) for more than 24 hours after which my screen would go blank and I think gdm would lock. Trying “gdm restart” from remote SSH would fail.

I followed the directions exactly and had no issues with the syntax that qwerty said on
NOVEMBER 20, 2009.

This downgrade seems to have fixed my gdm issue. Plus I can change the login window preferences (couldn’t do that with v2.28).

Thanks!
Paul

By: Ashish

Ashish — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:38:05 +0000

Superb,u r just brilliant… thanks….

By: yonatan

yonatan — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:13:12 +0000

thank you very much. I can now use “New user” in xscreensaver to switch user instead of installing gnome-session to make the new gnome-screensaver 2.28 run and then be able able to hit the button “change user”…

By: Rela-tiv

Rela-tiv — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:48:20 +0000

Hi,
thank you so much for this manual to downgrade.
I missed the old way to select the login-screens so much ^^’
With the gdm 2.20 finally I can set the login screen again as I like it.

greets
Rela-tiv

ps. excuse please my worse english xD

By: Majortom117

Majortom117 — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:16:48 +0000

Hi,

I had the same problems that there are two xserver startet after downgrading to gdm 2.20.

I think the problem is that there is a /etc/init/gdm.conf wich affects upstart to start gdm and because of the runlevel startscripts in rc* the gdm is started twice…

so I moved the /etc/init/gdm.conf to a temporary folder, rebooted and everything works fine now.

hope this could help, cause it helped for me

greets

Majortom117

By: Raymond

Raymond — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:09:04 +0000

Ive done 2 methods on trying to get gdm 2.20 to work on my 64 bit ubuntu 9.10

im wondering is there there something im overlooking or inputing incorrectly.

i keep receiving a blank screen with a dash at the top left after i do the methods and reboot. but when i log into recovery it works.

ive been trying really hard to get this working, and if anyone can help me i would be greatly appreciative

thanks for your time

By: Aryamaan

Aryamaan — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 08:26:37 +0000

Use this method instead of method number 4 :
cd /usr
sudo mkdir X11R6
cd X11R6
sudo ln -s /usr/bin bin

By: Lalo

Lalo — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:40:05 +0000

Hi i wrote a mistake, i dont have to startx manually but the problem is that i have to start the system in recovery mode , if i no start in recovery mode the system just freeze with a black window after the first splash screen appears … can anyone help me

Best Regards
ELO

By: Lalo

Lalo — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:20:05 +0000

Hi i just tried the commands and it worked , the only issue is that when i reload the system, it doesnt load by itself i need to enter in recovery mode and then startx manually, anyone can help me to solve this issue for the system to boot with the gdm 2.20 automatically ?

Best Regards Lalo

By: Indolence

Indolence — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:16:49 +0000

Dan: I had the same problem, I reinstalled ubuntu and then tried this again hard-wired to the internet and it worked. It seems wireless stops working after calling sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

L-user: I have your problem atm. Starting ubuntu in recovery mode and then choosing boot as normal allowed me to access the login screen.

By: L-user

L-user — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:35:29 +0000

Followed the instructions to the letter (and dot) and now my system has no gdm login and I can’t even pull up a console.

My system is totally fsked.

Any tips on how to get this un-fsked? I can’t even seem to boot into single user mode.. hitting escape doesn’t bring up grub. X just keeps trying to start in it’s broken state.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:56:08 +0000

Having increasing trouble with this. Initially the older GDM package could not be found, the url of the repository could not be resolved. The url was something like ‘gb.archive.ubuntu…’ Sadly I can’t check that now because trying to switch off GNOME using the first command no longer works, giving this error:

“Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8)
utility, e.g. service gdm stop

Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an
Upstart job, you may also use the stop(8) utility, e.g. stop gdm”

I have tried using the suggested commands, but I get an error that gdm is an ‘unknown instance’.

Phew. Anyone got any helpful ideas?

By: houn2000

houn2000 — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:34:39 +0000

It does exist, but only after you’ve install gdm-2.20. The newer versions of gdm began using the gconf backend, therefore no more conf files.

By: ignisuti

ignisuti — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:09:09 +0000

I’m having the same issue. Why do the instructions tell us to edit the gdm.conf file if it doesn’t exist? We need to figure out what’s going on so we can move forward on multiseating with Ubuntu 9.10.

By: slumbergod

slumbergod — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:44:21 +0000

There isn’t even a gdm.conf file to edit so I guess not.

By: slumbergod

slumbergod — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:16:01 +0000

Anyone know if this will work with Xubuntu Karmic? It uses gdm 2.28 the same as Ubuntu. If 2.20 is completely compatible just with better options then I should have no problem.

By: Baruch

Baruch — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:30:09 +0000

It worked like a charm. Thanks !!

I hope in the next version the guys from Canonical will correct the mistake. It’s an awful decision to revoke the option of login change in order to gain 2 seconds of boot time (believe me, there is no change at all..)

By: qwerty

qwerty — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:47:25 +0000

The correct command is
sudo sed -i ‘s/X11R6\///’ /etc/gdm/gdm.conf

By: Destroyer

Destroyer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:31:32 +0000

The sed line failed for me also, but at least put me on the right track.

Installed gdm-2.20 with synaptic then opened the gdm.conf in gedit as root. Replaced all ‘usr/bin/X11R6/X’ with ‘usr/bin/X’ and rebooted. Done!

Cheers!

By: smartjak

smartjak — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:10:03 +0000

I agree with ‘James says’. True I’m not using Ubuntu. I’m with Debian testing/Squeeze. Still, it’s using Gnome 2.28. And I don’t have a bit of a problem with it.

So what’s the bitch?