GNOME Session for OpenRC!

This is an OpenRC leader for GNOME Session. It creates a new leader, ctl tool, as well as some openrc init scripts to make GNOME session Just Work.

This was intended for use in Gentoo, but for other distributions that use OpenRC, things should also work just fine and I've taken some time to ensure it'll work smoothly: as long as you apply the GNOME Session patch. YMMV, but please don't be shy to reach out over GH issues for assistance and I may be able to help you! :-)

Setting up

Before anything, for GNOME 49, you will need to patch your GNOME Session with commit 419191d3 from my gnome-session fork over at the GNOME Gitlab. Later this may not be the case...

https://gitlab.gnome.org/swagtoy/gnome-session/-/commit/419191d3897957bd8cd325f2167f3c8663969a13

Now, when you build GNOME Session, you'll need to pass -Dsystemd=false like so:

$ cd /path/to/gnome-session
### now apply the patch...
$ meson setup build --prefix /usr -Dsystemd=false
$ cd build && ninja && sudo ninja install

Now you have a 'partial' build of GNOME Session, but without the systemd leader and the ctl tool. Pretty useless, right?

Now comes a gdm bit: create the gdm-greeter fallback user:

$ useradd -rm -d /var/lib/gdm-greeter -G gdm gdm-greeter

(unless you build with userdb support, which you probably haven't yet as I write this, as stable elogind hasn't rolled over elogind/elogind#323, though, the fixes may be backportable now if it works!)

You may also add gdm-greeter{-2,-3,-4} as well, but this is an edge case for multiseat greeters. Best to wait until userdb support (properly) lands into elogind (and soon, it appears that other alternatives for userdb are cropping up!).

OK, now for each user you want to login as, add the dbus user service to the boot runlevel (this blocks pam_openrc.so from finishing before dbus is ready, which on some devices may cause gnome-session to not start):

$ rc-update -U add dbus boot

Assuming you already installed GNOME 49 and GDM 49, then you can build the gnome-session-openrc in all its glory!

$ cd /path/to/gnome-session-openrc
$ meson setup build --prefix /usr
$ cd build && ninja && sudo ninja install

And of course, update your PAMs for GDM if you haven't:

0. Append -session optional pam_openrc.so to /etc/pam.d/gdm-launch-environment.
1. Add -session optional pam_openrc.so before session include system-local-login (this is a weird workaround, haven't figured it out yet).

Happy GNOMEing!