Despite installing xorg, including xorg-server, GNOME on Xorg doesnt’t show as an option in GDM. Editing /etc/gdm/custom.conf
F1 stops at [ OK ] Reached Target Graphical Interface.
Even if I install xorg, xorg-server, xorg-xinit, and gnome-session, GNOME on Xorg is not an option. Even if I edit /etc/gdm/custom.conf to uncomment WaylandEnable=false, the option either does not show, or GDM itself dumps its core. It also seems like I can’t switch TTYs upon GDM starting successfully, but I noticed that although my tinkering broke GNOME, I can finally switch TTYs again. If this is the wrong category for this topic my apologies.
EDIT: So, I’ve actually recommented the line, and GDM works again without crashing. And I can switch TTYs in GDM. But I still can’t switch TTYs in GNOME on Wayland, and there is still no Xorg option.
EDIT 2: gnome-session 49.0
EDIT 3: xorg-server 21.1.18
EDIT 4: GDM 49.0.1
EDIT 5: “No manual entry for gdm” and scant information about this configuration file but I’ll set XorgEnable=true based on Re-enable X11 support (02cf2b0b) · Commits · GNOME / gdm · GitLab and hope it works. But I probably shouldn’t have to do this as a user to see Xorg as an option in GDM even if it does end up working.
EDIT 6: It still doesn’t work. I guess changing the configuration file isn’t enough. Please don’t believe that “For GNOME 50, we’ll be able to outright delete the majority of X11 support". That’s not an option when switching TTYs works on neither my laptop or desktop on wayland.
Since 49 Xorg support was disabled by default. Your distro prolly (re-reading your post: your distro absolutely didn’t enabled it. GDM requires GNOME-Shell, and if it doesn’t support x11 itself, then GDM also doesn’t support it. However, launching other x11 sessions shouldn’t be affected.) compiled GNOME without changing it. Aside from compiling GNOME yourself with x11 support you can’t do much. And if you really really need x11, I’d recommend you to just change desktops, because in 50 x11 support is going away permanently.
And about TTYs switching, it’s hard to say. For starters, what distro are you on? I don’t think GNOME can do anything special with regards to TTYs. I’d love to help here, but I really have no idea why that wouldn’t even work in the first place.
OS Name: Arch Linux
OS Type: 64-bit
GNOME Version: 49
Windowing System: Wayland
Thank you for the help. you are correct that X11 support and TTYs are possibly different or unrelated issues. It’s also true I don’t necessarily require X11 support in the long term or indefinitely.
I actually only really want to switch TTYs, but do I really know that it would work under X11 because it doesn’t on Wayland? It was suggested by others online to try it in X11 if broken in Wayland. And to change the configuration file if X11 wasn’t working. I wanted to test it but couldn’t. Should I test it on a live USB of a different distro? Or by compiling GNOME?
Things I tried:
Switching TTYs using sudo chvt. Does it work? Yes! Do I want to type in my password to switch TTYs? No.
Should I try to figure out if it’s a distro problem since I can’t test if it’s an X11 problem without recompiling, which may take a very long time on my machine? This isn’t really a bug report since I know I could be wrong or this problem may somehow be unique to me. Thank you again. But I do hope that X11, even if unsupported, isn’t intentionally removed at compile time, but rather using a configuration file or setting that can be changed on the user’s side, because it can be useful in testing and workarounds to many bugs. It helps a user figure out if a problem is with GNOME in general or just GNOME on Wayland. Thanks again.
It appears to allow me to switch TTYs until I log into GNOME on Wayland. I can’t say the blame is on GNOME, on Wayland, or on GDM for sure. Maybe the problem is Arch or my keyboard. But I have it on two different keyboards so it would have to be on the software side, not hardware side. I’ve tried Ctrl+Alt and Fn+Ctrl+Alt for F1, F2, F3, and F4 with FnLock both on and off on the laptop keyboard. I Tried Ctrl+Alt+F1, F2, F3, and F4 on the full-size desktop keyboard, which doesn’t appear to have FnLock. Thank you again for taking the time to respond!
That’s sadly impossible. If x11 would be unsupported, it will have to be removed. If something is in the upstream’s codebase, then it’s upstream’s responsibility. Offering some functionality, and then saying to bug reports “Sorry, we don’t support this configuration” isn’t exactly the best thing. It’s best just to remove it altogether.
And a propos bugs, since quite a bit of years “GNOME” usually refers to GNOME on wayland. GNOME on xorg is very sparsely maintained and it accumulated a lot of bugs, some which are fixed by design on wayland. So when you will find a bug, you don’t need to try to reproduce it on xorg, just report it as is
I’d recommend checking on live USB of Fedora or Ubuntu.
And as for switching TTYs… the only thing I could think of is whether you maybe rebinded your keys? For example left win to left alt? Or maybe you changed some of the configuration files related to TTY? Sorry I can’t be of more help
Thank you for solving my problem! How embarassing I would overlook the obvious: Settings > Keyboard > Special Character Entry > Alternate Characters Key > from Left Alt to Right Alt.
The reason “Alternate Characters Key” was selected is because the “Compose Key” is off by default, meaning I can’t type special characters—like the em dash, for example.
Oh, wow, settings just froze while fiddling with those settings…
Well, the first option for Compose Key is “Right Alt”, but the Alt Char Key also starts out at that. It’s funny it lets you select a configuration where the alternate characters key and compose key are set to the same key, in which case the AltCharKey blocks the CompKey. The other issue is I could never figure out how to get the AltCharKey to do anything, but there’s no option to turn it off. The CompKey is useful and I always turn it on, but it’s off by default.
Is there a way to actually use the AltCharKey? How does it work and what can it do?
Is there a way to turn off the AltCharKey? Why can’t it be turned off, unlike the Compose Key
Why can the AltCharKey and ComposeKey be set to the same key? Is that an oversight? Who should I tell?
Call these additional details. I should possibly start a new topic.
