GNOME with Xmonad session requires gnome-panel

Bug #989405 reported by Jim Cheetham
32
This bug affects 6 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
xmonad (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

After installing the xmonad package, the login session "GNOME with Xmonad" is offered, but it cannot start, instead issuing an error message (from memory) "unable to open 'xmonad'".

This seems to be caused by the absence of the gnome-panel package; installing this makes things work :-)

I'm not quite sure how I ended up without gnome-panel as I upgraded to 12.04, but it was absent. Perhaps the package dependencies for Xmonad should require this? Not necessarily an easy decision however, but some indication of the dependency is needed.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

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

Changed in xmonad (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Caleb Callaway (enlightened-despot) wrote :

Adding gnome-panel to the Requires stanzas in xmonad's control file is not correct--many people will want to install xmonad without using Gnome. Adding gnome-panel to the Recommends stanza doesn't provide a strong guarantee that the dependency will be met.

I believe the correct solution is a separate xmonad-gnome package that installs the session and requires gnome-panel.

Revision history for this message
Caleb Callaway (enlightened-despot) wrote :

Further details: with gnome-panel, login with the session (it will fail), then switch to a virtual console (that is, hit Ctrl+Alt+F1). Login, and cat .xsession-errors. It will contain a single line:

gnome-session [PID]: WARNING: Unable to find required component 'gnome-panel'

Revision history for this message
Caleb Callaway (enlightened-despot) wrote :

Seems like this is best fixed at the Debian level, but after wasting a couple hours with configuration issues, crashes in the GTK interface, and no clear way to reload a report from draft (why in the world would a draft be helpful if I can't reload it?!) in reportbug, I've run out of patience.

Hopefully somebody else with knowledge of the Debian BTS' idiosyncrasies is available and can handle the report.

Revision history for this message
Ben West (bewest) wrote :

I'm not sure gnome-panel is required.

Seems like it'd be better to take the panel lines from the unity2d session and put them in the xmonad.session, and remove gnome-panel altogether.

The stock xmonad.hs will not do, however. This guy seems to have gotten it right: http://www.elonflegenheimer.com/2012/06/22/xmonad-in-ubuntu-12.04-with-unity-2d.html

Revision history for this message
Caleb Callaway (enlightened-despot) wrote :

Sounds quite nifty, but wouldn't that make the fix Ubuntu-specific? As I understand it, the Ubuntu folks like to see a problem fixed upstream if possible.

Revision history for this message
Ian Kelling (iank) wrote :

I suggest gnome-panel should be added as a recommended package, but not required.

Revision history for this message
raylu (raylu) wrote :

Installed Ubuntu 14.04 beta 1 desktop amd64 today from the LiveCD. gnome-panel and gnome-settings-daemon both prevented the session from starting.

Revision history for this message
James O'Beirne (james-obeirne) wrote :

Just hit this issue when setting up a new 14.04 box. It's seriously opaque and very frustrating.

To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.