[Intel Merom/Pineview graphics] GDM login screen does not appear (unless Wayland is manually disabled)

[Mauro Sassi]

After a fresh install of the final Ubuntu 18.04 the boot process hangs after GDM call (the login screen does not appear). After a few tests I realized that editing /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and removing the comment before "WaylandEnable=false" make the booting working again (with the wayland session option not available in GDM). I also tried using lightdm. In this case the login screen appears and I can choose xorg or wayland session from there. The latter (wayland) does not work and the system hangs on a black screen. This is also weird as the wayland session used to work flawlessly on the very same machine on 17.10. I don't need the wayland session but just found weird that system cannot start the login screen out-of-the-box and gdm does not automatically fallback.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: gdm3 3.28.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-generic 4.15.17
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Apr 28 11:04:18 2018
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-04-27 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=it_IT.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gdm3
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
mtime.conffile..etc.gdm3.custom.conf: 2018-04-28T10:40:22.176527

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Are you using an nvidia card? I am thinking this sounds like bug 1705369.

Could you please provide output from running this command?; lspci -k

[Mauro Sassi (maurosassi82)]

Thanks for your reply. No I don't have any nvidia card. It is a Dell 640m laptop with Intel integrated graphics (quite old one that I use mainly for testing). Symptoms do look similar but wayland session used to work flawlessly with 17.10 on this system. Here the output of lspci:

lspci -k
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
 Subsystem: Dell Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
 Subsystem: Dell Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
 Kernel driver in use: i915
 Kernel modules: i915, intelfb
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
 Subsystem: Dell Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller
 Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
 Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
 Kernel driver in use: pcieport
 Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
 Kernel driver in use: pcieport
 Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 4 (rev 01)
 Kernel driver in use: pcieport
 Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller
 Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller
 Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller
 Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller
 Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller
 Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge
 Kernel driver in use: lpc_ich
 Kernel modules: intel_rng, lpc_ich, leds_ss4200
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode]
 Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
 Kernel modules: pata_acpi
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Dell NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller
 Kernel modules: ...

[Mauro Sassi (maurosassi82)]

Beside the possible wayland related bug, I think the main issue here is that expected behavior would be for gdm3 to be able to show the login screen (where the default (xorg) session works). This is actually the behavior observed using lightdm.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks.

Sounds like a problem specific to that CPU/GPU generation. Please report the issue to upstream:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/issues

and include your CPU and GPU details there too.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Let's group this with bug 1727356.