Bug#1037084: bookworm: When using gdm3 to start non-GNOME wayland sessions, PATH may be set differently
GDM imports system user environment variables.
This bug would likely be fixed by Debian (the systemd package?)
shipping a /usr/lib/systemd/user-environment-generators/ systemd user
environment generator with the default PATH Debian already set in
/etc/profile.
gnome-session importing /etc/profile is a temporary hack, so even for a
plain Gnome session this will not work forever without this fix.
Or ship an /usr/lib/environment.d/*.conf file (which itself is read by
a systemd user environment generator : /usr/lib/systemd/user-
environment-generators/30-systemd-environment-d-generator).
Cheers,
Alban
On Sat, 3 Jun 2023 23:07:40 -0700 Jay <santosjaycee.0@gmail.com> wrote:
> Package: release-notes
> X-Debbugs-Cc: jlsantos@protonmail.com
> Severity: important
>
> Starting non-GNOME wayland sessions through GDM leads to a user's
PATH
> being set to
> /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
> instead of /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
> (from /etc/profile).
>
> Example: Starting sway or plasma-workspace-wayland through gdm and
> trying to launch
> lutris or gnome-chess only to find out that they won't start even
> though they are
> installed. It can take some time for a user to find out that the PATH
> environment
> variable is different.
>
> This is a regression in bookworm and can surprise users upgrading
from bullseye.
>
> Possible workarounds are: Using a different display manager such as
> sddm or starting
> the wayland session through tty.
>
> I first discovered this bug after installing lutris a few months
> ago[0] and filed
> a few bug reports[1][2]. As bookworm is about to be released, I
thought it may
> be worthwhile to document this unexpected behavior in its release
notes.
>
> 0: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1028543
> 1: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=942131
> 2: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/issues/846
>
>
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