unable to switch from gnome-classic to gnome in RHEL7
 

In gdm login screen I have the option to choose either gnome-classic or 'regular' gnome. gnome-classic is default in RHEL7, but even if I choose 'gnome' I still get logged in to gnome-classic. If i switch within my session with "gnome-shell --mode=user -r &" it works, but not via login screen.

Anyone have an idea if I'm missing something or is this a bug?

Regards,
Adam

How much RAM and video RAM do you have? Gnome Classic can serve as a fall-back mode when Gnome v. 3 does not see enough RAM.

This happens on several laptops, among them spanking new HP 820 laptops, so resources should not be an issue. Interesting thought though. Unfortunately I have found no logs of seeming interest as this happens so I feel a bit in the dark here.

Strange, I install RHEL7 on quite a few vms with very limited resources (1 vcpu, 512mb), and I never see it do a fallback.

How did you install RHEL? Did you install any other window managers?

You can get the code here, too, I guess: https://code.google.com/p/autokey/

I install using kickstart, including the gnome-desktop packagegroup. I dont install any other wm (or de). I do however exclude some packages, and even though it feels far-fetched i will do a 'complete' install of gnome-desktop and see if that changes things. But i guess there must be something in my customisation that makes it break, just need to find it. Any advice on how to debug this?

Try installing the following groups, instead:

Server with GUI
Graphical Administration Tools

You may be able to skip the second group if you're going for a minimal install.

This is a client installation, 'server with gui' group is not available. I did however try with gnome-desktop which pulled in quite a lot of packages (none which felt really relevant though) and this worked the first time I tried it. Then I did a fresh install and could not get it to work again. The only way to make it work consistently is to uninstall the 'gnome-classic-session' package so 'regular' gnome is the only option available - then I get a gnome session. Weird, I really want to know whats going on here. Anyone have more insight into which components are used and for what at logon and session selecting (gdm, xsession, logind, accounts-daemon, pam)?

wiad, did you read this?

https://access.redhat.com/documentat...e-classic.html

Specifically:

thanks for sticking with me! Yeah, I read and tried that, but it doesnt work. I don't see any difference in the session menu, and even if I change that file to 'gnome', accounts-daemon changes it right back when I try to login (tested with auditctl to see which process changes the file). However, that file seems to me to be for setting the default for a new user. classic is fine as a default, but I of course want my users to be able to choose gnome regular if they want (preferably without having to uninstall the gnome-classic-session package.

Well, we found the problem. We're using smartcard authentication (didnt mention it since I did not think it mattered) and pam_pkcs11, and when the latter is set to 'card_only', i.e get username from card instead of prompting for it, the profile chooser is broken. Normally in gdm login you choose you username or supply it via a prompt, and then that information is used to check your session profile settings. Well, using smartcard with card_only, the username is not passed to gdm and therefore your session settings does not stick.

Created a bug report:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1159056

Interesting!

I knew there had to be a reason that we hadn't stumbled upon when we were troubleshooting.