Xorg window manager stopped working after upgrade to kernel 6.16.3+deb13-amd64
Hi folks,
In a nutshell, the LXDE window manager stopped working after upgrade to
kernel 6.16.3+deb13-amd64 on a bunch of Debian based terminals (from the
start Bookworm, now Trixie). The previous kernel was
6.12.43+deb13-amd64, which is still working fine. There is just one
single uninformative log message in the journal, which makes it
impossible for me to track down what's going on.
The PCs are a mix of AMD, Intel, and VMs, so the problem is not hardware
related. The configuration of all terminals is more or less identical.
Currently, the terminals are using Debian Trixie. They are up to date,
as everything applicable is installed from Trixie backports.
My setup is configured as is described below.
- The terminals are configured with a graphical GUI using LightDM as
display manager, and LXDE as window manager.
- All terminals are members of Active directory domains (different),
based on Windows, and Samba.
- For user authentication Kerberos is used (libpam-krb5)
- User profiles are mounted to /home/<user> on the terminals with
libpam-mount through CIFS. The profiles are stored on CIFS shares (Dell
PowerStore NAS, Samba, Windows 2022 server). After succsessful logon,
the /home/<user> directory used for mounting is created, and after
logoff, the /home/<user> directory is unmounted and deleted (thanks to
libpam-mount).
- SSH is working when connecting over SSH from a remote machine, creates
and mounts the user's /home/<user> directory after a successful logon,
and deletes it after logoff.
- Local logon from a console is also working for domain users, similar
to logon over SSH.
- On a graphical desktop, libpam-mount creates the /home/<user>
directory, and mounts the profile on the server, and after that, the
LXDE window manager starts up, but seems to crash just before displaying
the desktop. Logon on a console as a domain user, and then running
startx from the command line also crashes LXDE. There are just one
short, uninformative log entry in the journal, that something went wrong
and the exit code is 255.
- When setting up a permanent, local /home/<user> directory on the
terminal and skipping the libpam-mount for managing /home/<user> there
are no problems at all. Mounting other user shares through libpam-mount
after logon, works without problems. Just not the user's /home together
with LXDE (I assume other window managers are affected also).
I'm reluctant to switch to something else, as LXDE is really light
weight, and the GUI is not too strange for people used to Windows.
Besides, it will be a major undertaking to switch the window manager of
all terminals. Also, I really do not like to keep user profiles on local
PCs, as backing up the user profiles will be an almost impossible task
(at least not trivial).
I would be most grateful for any ideas how to solve this problem. It's
obvious that something has changed from kernel 6.12.43+deb13-amd64 to
6.16.3+deb13-amd64, but I've got neither the knowledge, nor the time to
track down this change in behavior between kernel versions. If it's a
kernel bug, I will wait for it to get resolved. Otherwise, I need to
consider alternative solutions.
Best regards,
Peter
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