On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 05:23:03PM +0100, Lorenz via Dng wrote:
> I had a look at
> https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=7731
> and I wonder if gdm3 works on Devuan. If yes, I want to add support
> for it in runit-services package.
>
> I can't test on my system (I'm running Debian unstable) because it's
> not installable [1] but I think Devuan forked gdm3, so it would be of
> help if someone with a Devuan system that runs sysvinit tries to
> intall gdm3 and verifies if it works.

gdm3 installed fine on sid/sysvinit for me, but it did not run and in
fact messed up the console.

I had 'HEED_DEFAULT_DISPLAY_MANAGER=false' set in the initscript but it
also failed even when I set gdm3 as the default.

I haven't tried the Devuan package or with runit.


Package: gdm3
Version: 49.2-3

-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 6.18.5+deb14-amd64 (SMP w/24 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE= (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages gdm3 depends on:
ii  accountsservice                                 23.13.9-8+b1
ii  dbus [default-dbus-system-bus]                  1.16.2-3
ii  dbus-bin                                        1.16.2-3
ii  dconf-cli                                       0.49.0-4
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend                         0.49.0-4
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]                           1.5.91
ii  gir1.2-gdm-1.0                                  49.2-3
ii  gnome-session-bin                               49.2-3
ii  gnome-session-common                            49.2-3
ii  gnome-settings-daemon                           49.1-5
ii  gnome-shell                                     49.3-3
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas                       50~alpha-1
ii  libaccountsservice0                             23.13.9-8+b1
ii  libaudit1                                       1:4.1.2-1+b1
ii  libc6                                           2.42-13
ii  libgdm1                                         49.2-3
ii  libglib2.0-0t64                                 2.87.2-3
ii  libglib2.0-bin                                  2.87.2-3
ii  libgudev-1.0-0                                  238-7+b1
ii  libjson-glib-1.0-0                              1.10.8+ds-2
ii  libkeyutils1                                    1.6.3-6+b1
ii  libnss-systemd                                  259.1-1
ii  libpam-elogind [logind]                         255.17-1debian4
ii  libpam-modules                                  1.7.0-5+b1
ii  libpam-runtime                                  1.7.0-5
ii  libpam0g                                        1.7.0-5+b1
ii  librsvg2-common                                 2.61.3+dfsg-3+b1
ii  libselinux1                                     3.9-2
ii  libsystemd0                                     259.1-1
ii  libxau6                                         1:1.0.11-1+b1
ii  libxcb1                                         1.17.0-2+b2
ii  polkitd                                         127-2
ii  procps                                          2:4.0.4-9+b1
ii  systemd-standalone-sysusers [systemd-sysusers]  259.1-1
ii  ucf                                             3.0052
ii  x11-common                                      1:7.7+26
ii  x11-xserver-utils                               7.7+11
ii  xfce4-session [x-session-manager]               4.20.3-1
ii  xfce4-terminal [x-terminal-emulator]            1.1.5-1
ii  xfwm4 [x-window-manager]                        4.20.0-1
ii  xterm [x-terminal-emulator]                     406-1

Versions of packages gdm3 recommends:
ii  at-spi2-core                       2.59.1-2
ii  desktop-base                       14.0.0~pre2
ii  x11-xkb-utils                      7.7+9
ii  xfce4-session [x-session-manager]  4.20.3-1
ii  zenity                             4.2.1-1

Versions of packages gdm3 suggests:
pn  libpam-fprintd        <none>
ii  libpam-gnome-keyring  48.0-5
pn  libpam-pkcs11         <none>
pn  libpam-sss            <none>
ii  orca                  49.5-1

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/init.d/gdm3 changed:
set -e
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/sbin/gdm3
PIDFILE=/run/gdm3.pid
test -x $DAEMON || exit 0
if [ -r /etc/default/locale ]; then
  . /etc/default/locale
  export LANG LANGUAGE
fi
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
HEED_DEFAULT_DISPLAY_MANAGER=false
DEFAULT_DISPLAY_MANAGER_FILE=/etc/X11/default-display-manager
activate_logind() {
  # Try to dbus activate logind to avoid a race conditions if we are not
  # running systemd as PID1 and we have systemd << 204 package installed (see:
  # #747292)
  if [ ! -d /run/systemd/system ] && [ -x /lib/systemd/systemd-logind-launch ]; then
    dbus-send --system --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.DBus /org/freedesktop/DBus \
      org.freedesktop.DBus.StartServiceByName string:org.freedesktop.login1 uint32:0 2>&1 > /dev/null
  fi
}
case "$1" in
  start)
        CONFIGURED_DAEMON=$(basename "$(cat $DEFAULT_DISPLAY_MANAGER_FILE 2> /dev/null)")
        if grep -wqs text /proc/cmdline; then
            log_warning_msg "Not starting GNOME Display Manager; found 'text' in kernel commandline."
        elif [ -e "$DEFAULT_DISPLAY_MANAGER_FILE" ] && \
           [ "$HEED_DEFAULT_DISPLAY_MANAGER" = "true" ] && \
           [ "$CONFIGURED_DAEMON" != gdm3 ] ; then
                log_action_msg "Not starting GNOME Display Manager; it is not the default display manager"
        else
                log_daemon_msg "Starting GNOME Display Manager" "gdm3"
                activate_logind || log_end_msg 1
                /usr/share/gdm/generate-config
                start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE \
            --background --exec $DAEMON || log_end_msg 1
                log_end_msg 0
        fi
  ;;
  stop)
        log_daemon_msg "Stopping GNOME Display Manager" "gdm3"
        set +e
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE \
                --name gdm3 --retry 5
        set -e
        log_end_msg $?
  ;;
  reload)
        log_daemon_msg "Scheduling reload of GNOME Display Manager configuration" "gdm3"
        /usr/share/gdm/generate-config
        set +e
        start-stop-daemon --stop --signal HUP --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE \
                --name gdm3
        set -e
        log_end_msg $?
  ;;
  status)
        status_of_proc -p "$PIDFILE" "$DAEMON" gdm3 && exit 0 || exit $?
  ;;
  restart|force-reload)
        $0 stop
        $0 start
  ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/gdm3 {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload|status}"
        exit 1
  ;;
esac
exit 0

-- debconf information:
gdm3/daemon_name: /usr/sbin/gdm3
* shared/default-x-display-manager: lightdm