Troubleshooting Desktop Transition Issues

Refer to the following troubleshooting information when transitioning to the Oracle Solaris Desktop (GNOME 2.30).

Installing the Oracle Solaris Desktop Software Package After an Installation

The Oracle Solaris 11 text installer does not include the primary software package that includes the GNOME 2.30 desktop. If you use this installation method, you will need to install the solaris-desktop package afterwards. For information about using the pkg install command to add packages after a text installation, see Adding Software After Text Installation in Installing Oracle Solaris 11.1 Systems.

If you have a situation where you need to install the solaris-desktop package on a system running a live session, create a new boot environment, install the solaris-desktop package, then activate the new boot environment, as follows:

# beadm create be-name
# beadm mount be-name /mnt
# pkg -R /mnt install group/system/solaris-desktop
# bootadm update-archive -R /mnt
# beadm umount be-name
# beadm activate be-name

GNOME Desktop Manager Issues

Note the following potential GDM login issues:

• CDE to GDM login configuration – If you customized your CDE login in Oracle Solaris 10, you will likely need to reintegrate your configuration choices to work with GDM in Oracle Solaris 11. Note that an exact one-to-one mapping between CDE and GDM login features does not exist. Some CDE login configuration choices are not available in the GDM login, and there are some GDM login configuration choices that are not available in the CDE login. For example, the GDM login screen does not offer a chooser screen by default.

  Another example is the X Display Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP) feature, which is configured and enabled differently in Oracle Solaris 11 than Oracle Solaris 10. The new GDM provides the ability to run an XDMCP server, but this feature is disabled by default. You can enable the feature by modifying the GDM configuration file.

  Another requirement of XDMCP is that X11 allow TCP/IP connections, which is also disabled by default. Refer to the Xserver(1) man page for instructions on how to enable this feature. See also the gdm(1) man page, the yelp-tools manual, and the online help.

• Support for Oracle Solaris 10 GDM themes in Oracle Solaris – In Oracle Solaris 10, GDM is shipped as a non-default login program, which includes a GUI configuration tool. In Oracle Solaris 11, GDM does not have this GUI configuration tool. Also, the GDM themes that work with GDM in Oracle Solaris 10 are not supported in this release. You can change the appearance of the new GDM login GUI by modifying the /usr/share/gdm/gdm-greeter-login-window.ui file, as desired.