GNOME Without Systemd (for Gentoo Linux et al.)¹

Note: Preface aside, feel free to skip the introduction and go straight to Getting Started but if you intend to contact me, please read everything to make sure that your question hasn't already been answered.

• Preface
  • Security Advisories
• Introduction
  • Description
  • Overview
  • Rationale
  • Long-term Solutions
  • Long-term Support
  • Updates
  • Bugs and Other Issues
  • Contributing
• Getting Started
  • Dependencies
  • Incompatibilities
  • Incompatibilities (ConsoleKit)
  • Incompatibilities (elogind)
  • Derivatives
  • Known Issues
  • Preparing Overlays
  • Fetching Overlays
  • Profile Selection
  • Profile Selection (Gentoo Linux)
  • Configuration (Optional GNOME Applications)
  • Configuration (Optional Quality of Life Improvements)
  • Configuration (Wayland)
  • Upgrading
  • Installation
  • Finishing Touches
  • Finishing Touches (ConsoleKit)
  • Finishing Touches (elogind)
  • Finishing Touches (text-based login)
  • Finishing Touches (text-based login with ConsoleKit)
  • Finishing Touches (text-based login with elogind)
  • Switching
  • Uninstallation
  • Tips
  • External Resources
• Internals
  • Profiles
  • Plumbing

¹ For details, see: Distributions based on Gentoo. ↩

Description

For those not familiar with the matter, the state of GNOME was such that while:

• systemd was not a hard compile time dependency
• systemd was a hard run time dependency for basic functionality

Basic functionality was what the GNOME team decided included:

• power management
• session tracking
• lid close handling
• log/event viewing
• Wayland (in GNOME, not in general)

This means that before, without applying any patches, you could run GNOME in two official conditions:

1. GNOME with systemd and with basic functionality
2. GNOME without systemd and without basic functionality¹

This project delivered (and still does deliver for a range of GNOME release versions):

• GNOME without systemd and with basic functionality

For our purposes this means a dependency on OpenRC, ConsoleKit (or elogind) and UPower with Power Management Utilities (pm-utils) reintegrated (or elogind support).

Searching for information on this subject in places other than my official contributions on Gentoo Linux (e.g. forum topic #1022050) and Funtoo Linux (e.g. issues #1329, #1637 & #2485 and forum topic #263) will turn up information that is in many cases almost entirely dead wrong. So let me emphasize that this was indeed the full GNOME experience without systemd and with minimal divergence from the vanilla default.

The only feature which did not work was Wayland (unless you were/are using an elogind implementation).

Of course, this is a mostly a matter of the past.

Now that Gentoo has a systemdless GNOME, this project's focus has changed to its secondary purpose which is to allow switching between GNOME release versions.

¹ For details, see: "Basic" OpenRC Mode. ↩

Overview

¹ See overlay commit history for GNOME 3.14 & 3.16. ↩

² Commit history is not displayed because updates mirror the effect of a git shallow clone with "--depth 1". ↩

³ These GNOME release versions depend on Python 2.7 and requires the restoration of a couple of related deleted packages. If listed in the timeline then they were recently tested and confirmed to be build passing (assuming one provides any missing components).

⁴ These GNOME release versions received less upstream bugfixes. They are tested at a lower priority than longterm and stable releases.

⁵ Power management, session tracking and log/event viewing. ↩

⁶ These are optional patches which improve the GNOME experience. ↩

⁷ There are three classes of grading: "gold", superb; "silver", satisfactory; and "bronze", acceptable. Loosely speaking, three aspects are graded: accessibility, usability and stability. Each qualifying aspect gives a grade increase. If a GNOME release version is not "gold" and it is not considered "alpha" or "beta", it is lacking in one or multiple aspects.↩

⁸ Full GNOME release versions are in the form of MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH. For the purposes of this project, PATCH at: 0 is considered "alpha", 1 is considered "beta" and 2 or higher is considered "stable". A 🗘 symbol is for internal purposes and denotes that the relevant ebuilds should be synced against the main tree. ↩

Dependencies

Note: Gentoo Linux users can choose to follow Sakaki's more detailed instructions (GNOME/GNOME Without systemd/Dantrell) for this project instead of continuing below. Likewise, there is also an excellent resource (Sakaki's EFI Install Guide) for those wanting to dual-boot with Windows 8+.

It is assumed you followed the Gentoo Handbook (or what's mentioned in relevant Derivatives section) and have a machine running with the default SysV-style OpenRC init system with an appropriately configured user account for daily use.

It is further assumed that you set VIDEO_CARDS and INPUT_DEVICES in /etc/portage/make.conf and configured the kernel accordingly for the following dependencies:

• X Window server
• udev (or eudev which is now obsolete)
• synaptics
• PulseAudio
• ACPI

The remaining dependencies require no kernel configuration:

• ConsoleKit (not ConsoleKit2) or elogind
• D-Bus
• UPower with Power Management Utilities (pm-utils) reintegrated or elogind support

All of the above packages are pulled in automatically. Relevant services will be activated in the Finishing Touches section.

Incompatibilities

1. NVIDIA Drivers with Userspace VESA Framebuffer (uvesafb)

   Starting from version 358, the NVIDIA drivers are incompatible with the Userspace VESA Framebuffer (uvesafb) and will crash your system if you attempt to: (1) change between VTT and X, or (2) suspend or hibernate.

   You can work around the issue by switching from uvesafb to the EFI Framebuffer (efifb) with or without the Simple Framebuffer (simplefb). However, this also requires you to switch from a BIOS to a UEFI bootloader and depending on your hardware (especially your monitor) it may disable your high-resolution console.

   If you want to continue using uvesafb feel free to remain on the last working long-lived branch release of the NVIDIA drivers, 352.79 (25 Jan 2016). However, it is only compatible with Linux Kernel versions older than 4.5.

   Reference:

   • Gentoo Bug #564096
   • NVIDIA Topic #912455

Incompatibilities (ConsoleKit)

• ConsoleKit2

  ConsoleKit2 is supposed to be backwards compatible with ConsoleKit (which this project is based around) but this is not the case.

Incompatibilities (elogind)

• NVIDIA Drivers with Wayland

  The nouveau drivers have better support.

Derivatives

Note: If you are using a Gentoo Linux derivative that is build passing, now is a good time to check if there are any instructions related to getting started.

¹ Derivatives that are build failing are considered to have broken compatibility with Gentoo Linux and are not supported. ↩

Known Issues

• Python & SQLite Circular Dependencies

  Can occur during new installs using the combined (gnome+plasma) profiles. Might require a USE flag to be temporarily disabled on one of two packages:

   dev-lang/python (Change USE: -sqlite)
   dev-db/sqlite (Change USE: -icu)
  

  We could handle this seamlessly on our end but we want users to be aware of this particular circular dependency.

• Rust (on x86 or multilib systems)

  Set abi_x86_32 on dev-lang/rust or gnome-base/librsvg will fail to build.

• librsvg

  Might require dev-lang/vala to be manually installed first.

• GTK+

  Might require app-i18n/ibus² (if present) to be rebuilt first otherwise it will build but fail to install.

¹ For details, see: Gentoo bug #550446.

Preparing Overlays

Install Layman¹ (checking that the git USE flag is enabled or dev-vcs/git is separately installed):

emerge --ask layman

Add our repositories.xml file to Layman with nano -w /etc/layman/layman.cfg:

#  original unsigned lists and definitions
#  one url per line, indented

overlays  :
    https://api.gentoo.org/overlays/repositories.xml
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dantrell/gentoo-overlay-dantrell-gnome/master/repositories.xml

Update the cached remote list(s):

layman --fetch

If it went right it will say something similar to:

Fetching remote list,...
Remote list already up to date: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/overlays/repositories.xml
Last-modified: Sat, 01 Oct 2016 21:40:18 GMT
Fetching new list... https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dantrell/gentoo-overlay-dantrell-gnome/master/repositories.xml
Last-modified: Mon, 03 Oct 2016 00:31:03 GMT
Fetch Ok

Warnings like "an installed db file was not found at" are okay if Layman previously had no cached remote list.

¹ If updating old (<=2.0) layman installations, see: Updating Old Layman Installations. ↩

Fetching Overlays

Note: You can add as many GNOME release overlays as you want (even all of them). Your profile selection will determine which one takes precedence.

Add the generic GNOME overlay:

layman --add dantrell-gnome

Add your preferred GNOME release overlay such as GNOME 42:

layman --add dantrell-gnome-42

In the future, to update all overlays, use:

layman --sync-all

Profile Selection

Note: If you do not select a profile, you are on your own.

There are two sets of bundled profiles:

1. The "defaults" which globally turns on GNOME related USE flags.

2. The "extended versions" which closely mirrors Gentoo's GNOME profile¹ and globally turns on USE flags which indirectly affect GNOME in addition to the defaults.

¹ For details, see: Differences Between GNOME Profiles. ↩

For immediate access to hidden profiles do:

emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose app-admin/eselect

To list the bundled profiles use:

eselect profile list

The relevant output will look similar to:

[35]  dantrell-gnome:default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/gnome+plasma (stable)
[36]  dantrell-gnome:default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/gnome+plasma/mainline (stable)
[37]  dantrell-gnome-42:default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/gnome/42 (stable)
[38]  dantrell-gnome-42:default/linux/amd64/17.1/desktop/gnome/42/extended (stable)

Profile Selection (Gentoo Linux)

To expedite matters for a default install, use the bundled profile for either amd64:

eselect profile set dantrell-gnome-42:default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/gnome/42

or x86:

eselect profile set dantrell-gnome-42:default/linux/x86/17.0/desktop/gnome/42

Note: If you are using a Gentoo Linux derivative, now is a good time to check if there are any instructions related to profile selection.

Configuration (Optional GNOME Applications)

Even if you choose gnome instead of gnome-light in the Installation section, there are still some GNOME applications that won't be pulled in automatically. You can manage those through the USE flags on gnome-base/gnome-extra-apps with nano -w /etc/portage/package.use/gnome-extra-apps:

¹ If no release version is specified then all available versions are supported. ↩

Configuration (Optional Noto Fonts Styles, Glyphs & Format)

Google's Noto Fonts are (arguably) the most expansive typographic families ever made, supporting over 800 languages (even dead ones) and over 110,000 characters. As a result, however, it is enormous and subsequently can (in some cases) have a noticeable and reproducible impact on performance (directly related to the number of fonts processed).

You can manage this through the USE flags on media-fonts/noto with nano -w /etc/portage/package.use/noto:

By default, we mirror the result of the main tree but you may want to change this.²

¹ If no release version is specified then all available versions are supported. ↩

² For details, see: Alternatives to media-fonts/noto{,-cjk,-emoji}?. ↩

Configuration (Optional Quality of Life Improvements)

These are optional patches which aim to improve the GNOME experience and are mostly aesthetic and performant in nature. They can be managed through the deprecated* and vanilla* USE flags (to determine what flag does what check their classification) on the following packages:

¹ If no release version is specified then all available versions are supported. ↩

² For details, see: gtk-embed: Don't allow multiple async allocations.

Configuration (Wayland)

Note: This step is necessary since X is the default and Wayland requires the elogind implementation.

Assuming all other conditions are met, you can enable Wayland with nano -w /etc/portage/make.conf:

USE="${USE} -ck elogind"
USE="${USE} egl wayland"

Upgrading

Regardless of whether GNOME is already installed or not, upgrade all installed packages, dependencies, and deep dependencies that are outdated or have USE flag changes (avoiding unnecessary rebuilds when USE changes have no impact):

emerge --ask --update --deep --changed-use --with-bdeps=y @world

This step is necessary to switch to my forks of certain packages. As an added bonus, if you already have GNOME installed, it should just Do The Right Thing™.

Installation

Note: Build failures are possible if you have parallelism enabled. In such cases, re-issue the previous command.

Proceed with either:

emerge --ask --keep-going gnome

or:

emerge --ask --keep-going gnome-light

Finishing Touches

Note: The following commands assume you want a GUI-based login and NetworkManager support.

Configure xdm with nano -w /etc/conf.d/xdm:

# We always try and start X on a static VT. The various DMs normally default
# to using VT7. If you wish to use the xdm init script, then you should ensure
# that the VT checked is the same VT your DM wants to use. We do this check to
# ensure that you haven't accidentally configured something to run on the VT
# in your /etc/inittab file so that you don't get a dead keyboard.
CHECKVT=7

# What display manager do you use ?  [ xdm | gdm | kdm | gpe | entrance ]
# NOTE: If this is set in /etc/rc.conf, that setting will override this one.
DISPLAYMANAGER="gdm"

Allow users to use direct rendering:

getent group video && gpasswd --add <username> video

Allow users to manage devices:

getent group plugdev && gpasswd --add <username> plugdev

Allow users to run games which reside in /usr/games/bin/:

getent group games && gpasswd --add <username> games

Configure services:

rc-update del dhcpcd default

rc-update add NetworkManager default
rc-update add dbus default
rc-update add xdm default

Finishing Touches (ConsoleKit)

Configure services:

rc-update add acpid default
rc-update add consolekit default

rc && exit

Finishing Touches (elogind)

Configure services:

rc-update add elogind boot

rc && exit

Finishing Touches (text-based login)

Configure autostart (startup applications) with nano -w ~/.xprofile:

gnome-terminal

Finishing Touches (text-based login with ConsoleKit)

Configure startx (or anything that calls xinit) with nano -w ~/.xinitrc:

# Fix Missing Applications in GNOME
export XDG_MENU_PREFIX=gnome-

# Properly Launch the Desired X Session
exec ck-launch-session gnome-session

Finishing Touches (text-based login with elogind)

Configure startx (or anything that calls xinit) with nano -w ~/.xinitrc:

# Fix Missing Applications in GNOME
export XDG_MENU_PREFIX=gnome-

# Properly Launch the Desired X Session
exec gnome-session

Switching

Note: If downgrading, use of binary packages will complicate the process.

Update all overlays (and fetch new ones):

layman --sync-all

Add your preferred GNOME release overlay:

layman --add dantrell-gnome-42

Set your profile to your preferred GNOME release:

eselect profile set dantrell-gnome-42:default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/gnome/42

Upgrade all installed packages, dependencies, and deep dependencies that are outdated or have USE flag changes (avoiding unnecessary rebuilds when USE changes have no impact):

emerge --ask --update --deep --changed-use --with-bdeps=y @world

Clean dependencies:

emerge --ask --depclean

Uninstallation

Note: The overlays do some of their work even if you don't use one of the bundled profiles so if you don't want to delete them, you must dereference them.

Start with either:

emerge --ask --unmerge gnome

or:

emerge --ask --unmerge gnome-light

Remove all of the project overlays:

layman --delete dantrell-gnome
layman --delete dantrell-gnome-42

Switch profiles (after reviewing any relevant¹ Gentoo Linux news items):

eselect profile list
eselect profile set <target>

Update @world:

emerge --ask --update --deep --changed-use --with-bdeps=y @world

Clean dependencies:

emerge --ask --depclean

² For details, see: New 17.0 profiles in the Gentoo repository & amd64 17.1 profiles are now stable.

Tips

• 13.0, 17.0 & 17.1 Portage Profiles

  Version	Description	Status
  13.0	Optional PIE	Hidden¹
  17.0	Enforces PIE	Hidden¹ for amd64; Visible for x86
  17.1	Enforces PIE & Removes /lib32 Directory	Visible

• Sleep and Shutdown Hooks:

  Implementation	Sleep	Shutdown
  ConsoleKit	/etc/pm/sleep.d	/etc/pm/sleep.d
  elogind-227.*	/lib/elogind/system-sleep	/lib/elogind/system-shutdown
  elogind-234.0+	/usr/lib/elogind/system-sleep	/usr/lib/elogind/system-shutdown

¹ For details, see: the latter half of Gentoo post #8438940.

External Resources

• GNOME/GNOME Without systemd
• GNOME/GNOME Without systemd/Dantrell