I have to say first that, first that this issue might have to do with the fact that I’m on FreeBSD, however when I googled the problem, it seemed like it randomly manifested itself on some of the Linux distros as well.
Basically what happens is: I install GNOME and GDM through the pkg command, enable everything it requires as per FreeBSD instructions here: Chapter 5. The X Window System | FreeBSD Documentation Portal. That is to say, I added the following lines to my /etc/rc.conf:
mousd_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
gdm_enable="YES"
gnome_enable="YES"
and, as per instructions, the proc filesystem is mounted via /etc/fstab:
...
proc /proc procfs rw 0 0
...
I the reboot and I can see GDM loaded (because the the default gray background appears), but there’s nothing on it. It’s completely empty. No option to select users and no panel at the top of it to reboot or perform some other actions.
I first found this discussion saying it might have been an issue with the accountsservice package. So I patched it accordingly, removed the packaged version of GDM and installed it from the patched ports. No change, the screen is still empty.
So, I suspect, it might be something GDM or GNOME specific rather than a FreeBSD issue. Can anyone advise?