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:

1.3.3. Disabling GNOME Classic as the Default Session For all newly created users on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, GNOME Classic is set as the default session. To override that setting for a specific user, you need to modify the user's account service in the /var/lib/AccountsService/users/username file. See Section 14.3.2, “Configuring a User Default Session” for details on how to do that.

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.