sarge gnome does not show anything after login on fresh installs

[John Smith <netman1@home.nl>]

To all those other s*ckers, like me, who install, like me, sarge as 
from today from scratch with gdm version 2.4.4.7-3.

Symptoms: gnome does not display anything after logging in 
through gdm-login except for a blue screen and a mouse pointer.

This is a hint about what is wrong:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=241323

It does not start gnome-session

Workaround:
edit your /etc/dm/Sessions/default.desktop
modify "Exec=default" to "Exec=custom"

Save the attached file (from an earlier release) 
in your ~/.xsession 
chmod +x ~/.xsession
/etc/init.d/gdm restart

Couple of other things as well:
It fails to set gdm as the default window manager
update-alternatives --show x-window-manager

YMMV, DNTTAHK, etc.

Sincerely,

Jan.

Attachment: .xsession
Description: application/shellscript