New window manager AFTER ProtonVPN install attempt?

[djcaptpln880]

Hello Bizarre situation here.

I tried to install ProtonVPN and it didn't apparently work (another issue)

Now my WIndow Manager has been changed to lightDBM or something like that? I followed the instructions on this page here:

https://protonvpn.com/support/official-linux-vpn-mint/\

I followed the directions to the letter BUT NOW my login screen and some apps are entirely different than MATE! THe login screen especially is no longer MATE?

Here is output as the directions said to do:

grep '/usr/s\?bin' /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gdm3


Do you happen to know what to do to get it back?

Here is ouput

[Flemur]

I followed the directions to the letter BUT NOW my login screen and some apps are entirely different than MATE! THe login screen especially is no longer MATE?

Here is output as the directions said to do:

grep '/usr/s\?bin' /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gdm3

Note: That's yet another example of Linux's confusing, inconsistent terminology; that's NOT your window manager, that's the display AKA session- (AKA login-manager; the thing that provides the login display. A window manager helps you control the windows on the screen when you're running the system after you're logged in.

Pretty bizarre instructions, apparently install a whole new desktop (gnome-shell, which requires login manager gdm3) just for an icon (?!?)...

From article:

To install the system tray icon, open Terminal and enter:
sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-appindicator gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1

Uninstall those packages and reinstall lightdm; before you reboot make sure lightdm shows up in

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grep '/usr/s\?bin' /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

and just to make sure, run

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sudo systemctl enable lightdm.service

This last should happen automagically, so that's just to make sure.

Edit: that site seems to say that protonvpn is in the regular Mint repos - have you tried using that version?

[djcaptpln880]

Thanks for the reply! Big time help!

So any informayion/advice you give here should NOT be screwing up my system to make it inoperable? :_)

[djcaptpln880]

Here is the ouput of running

udo systemctl enable lightdm.service
Synchronizing state of lightdm.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable lightdm

The unit files have no installation config (WantedBy=, RequiredBy=, Also=,
Alias= settings in the [Install] section, and DefaultInstance= for template
units). This means they are not meant to be enabled using systemctl.

Possible reasons for having this kind of units are:
• A unit may be statically enabled by being symlinked from another unit's
.wants/ or .requires/ directory.
• A unit's purpose may be to act as a helper for some other unit which has
a requirement dependency on it.
• A unit may be started when needed via activation (socket, path, timer,
D-Bus, udev, scripted systemctl call, ...).
• In case of template units, the unit is meant to be enabled with some
instance name specified.


ANy idea what i going on?

[Flemur]

ANy idea what i going on?

Sort of - gdm is still active and they do the same thing, so I should've suggested that you reinstall lightdm;

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sudo systemctl disable gdm

(if it complains, try gmd3)

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sudo apt install lightdm --reinstall

You should see this:

then this:

lightdm-install2.jpg (5.13 KiB) Viewed 2199 times

Select lightdm (I temporarily installed lightdm for this thread - I use login manager lxdm, which isn't standard)

After that, and before you reboot, check it:

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sudo systemctl  status lightdm.service

In the confusing output you should see

Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)

(but probably NOT loaded, since you didn't boot with lightdm; it won't be running until you reboot)

Then check this again to make sure it returns lightdm:

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grep '/usr/s\?bin' /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

If those are OK, cross your fingers and reboot... (the issue with these packages is that if they're missing or messed up you can't login normally, hence all the checking to make sure it's OK before rebooting).

[djcaptpln880]

I followed your directions here

THis is the screen I get. It did not give me any options?

Also lookk at output below. It says lightdm is dead?


sudo apt install lightdm --reinstall
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
libsecret-tools python3-bcrypt python3-dialog python3-gnupg python3-jinja2
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 144 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://mirror.ca-tr.kamatera.com/ubuntu focal-updates/universe amd64 lightdm amd64 1.30.0-0ubuntu4~20.04.1 [144 kB]
Fetched 144 kB in 0s (547 kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 428930 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../lightdm_1.30.0-0ubuntu4~20.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking lightdm (1.30.0-0ubuntu4~20.04.1) over (1.30.0-0ubuntu4~20.04.1) ...
Setting up lightdm (1.30.0-0ubuntu4~20.04.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.16-2ubuntu2.1) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (245.4-4ubuntu3.7) ...

ALSO


sudo systemctl status lightdm.service
● lightdm.service - Light Display Manager
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; static; vendor preset>
Active: inactive (dead)
Docs: man:lightdm(1)

[Flemur]

I followed your directions here
THis is the screen I get. It did not give me any options?

Missing picture? (No options means you don't have two installed, which is correct if you removed gdm)

It says lightdm is dead?

I think that means it's not running...yet, until you reboot.

But this all looks good:

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Setting up lightdm (1.30.0-0ubuntu4~20.04.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.16-2ubuntu2.1) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (245.4-4ubuntu3.7) ...

If this grep returns lightdm, you're all set:

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grep '/usr/s\?bin' /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

[djcaptpln880]

Right now it is showing this:

grep '/usr/s\?bin' /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/gdm3


IT should be showing the LIGHTDM like you said before ONLY after I reboot right?
I am starting a wellness website for guys, so this is a big help

[djcaptpln880]

IF this for some reason doesn't work, and I cannot log into the desktop, do you know what i should be doing?

[djcaptpln880]

I hope this means I removed GDM?

sudo systemctl disable gdm
[sudo] password for od:
Removed /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service.


Thanks

[Flemur]

I hope this means I removed GDM?

sudo systemctl disable gdm
[sudo] password for od:
Removed /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service.

This'll tell:

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$ dpkg -l "gdm*" 
...
un  gdm3           <none>       <none>       (no description available)

If it was installed it'd say "ii gdm3..."

And while we're at it

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dpkg -l "lightdm*" 

What do you get from the grep? If it's installed (as per dpkg) and the grep shows it's the login manager to use, you're good to go.

If, as in your previous question, what to do if it messes up - login in to console mode ("recovery" or "single"), you can still do all these commands, and you might be able to startx from a console and get a regular graphical session going.

[djcaptpln880]

HEllo
thanks for the help again

I Just tried rebooting after all the instructions you gave.

It booted into command prompt and not the mint intro screen as needed.

Thankfully I knew "startx" to get back into the desktop

Can you please tell me what I should do here to get it back working again besides doing a timeshift restore? I don't want to mess around with that.

Here is output
dpkg -l "lightdm*"
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture D>
+++-====================================-=======================-============-=>
ii lightdm 1.30.0-0ubuntu4~20.04.1 amd64 D>
un lightdm-greeter <none> <none> (>
un lightdm-kde-greeter <none> <none> (>
un lightdm-remote-session-freerdp <none> <none> (>
un lightdm-remote-session-uccsconfigure <none> <none> (>
ii lightdm-settings 1.5.5 all L

THanks

[Flemur]

HEllo
thanks for the help again

No problem. This desktop stuff is much much goofier than it should be.

dpkg -l "lightdm*"
...
ii lightdm 1.30.0-0ubuntu4~20.04.1 amd64 D>
un lightdm-greeter <none> <none> (>
un lightdm-kde-greeter <none> <none> (>
un lightdm-remote-session-freerdp <none> <none> (>
un lightdm-remote-session-uccsconfigure <none> <none> (>
ii lightdm-settings 1.5.5 all L
[/quote]
!!

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sudo apt install lightdm-greeter 

It (-greeter) should be a requirement for lightdm but it isn't although lightdm won't work without it.
If I was smarter I would've remembered that...

[djcaptpln880]

Thanks for the reply

It is showing this when I run this

sudo apt install lightdm-greeter
[sudo] password for o:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package lightdm-greeter is a virtual package provided by:
unity-greeter 18.04.0+20.04.20200312-0ubuntu2
ukui-greeter 1.2.5-1
lightdm-gtk-greeter 2.0.6-0ubuntu1
lightdm-autologin-greeter 1.0-3
kylin-greeter 19.04.2
arctica-greeter 0.99.1.4-1
slick-greeter 1.5.4+uma
You should explicitly select one to install.

E: Package 'lightdm-greeter' has no installation candidate


DO you happen to know which one to install?

[djcaptpln880]

Thanks for the reply

It is showing this when I run this

sudo apt install lightdm-greeter
[sudo] password for o:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package lightdm-greeter is a virtual package provided by:
unity-greeter 18.04.0+20.04.20200312-0ubuntu2
ukui-greeter 1.2.5-1
lightdm-gtk-greeter 2.0.6-0ubuntu1
lightdm-autologin-greeter 1.0-3
kylin-greeter 19.04.2
arctica-greeter 0.99.1.4-1
slick-greeter 1.5.4+uma
You should explicitly select one to install.

E: Package 'lightdm-greeter' has no installation candidate


DO you happen to know which one to install?

[Flemur]

sudo apt install lightdm-greeter
[sudo] password for o:
Package lightdm-greeter is a virtual package provided by:

Sigh....

DO you happen to know which one to install?

lightdm-gtk-greeter

Then run

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dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

to make sure.

[djcaptpln880]

Have NOT rebooted yet

However here is the output after running those commands

grep '/usr/s\?bin' /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/lightdm

Looks good! I won't be running those original commands for a simple VPN software suite that is crap!