Linux – GDM Won’t Automatically Start After Boot

Ubuntu 10.04

Hi guys. I'm not sure why but quite recently, my ubuntu desktop started bringing up the command prompt login screen after booting. I want GDM to start up by default.

I can manually bring up GDM by typing:

sudo service gdm start

or

sudo /usr/sbin/gdm

but I want something more permanent.

The contents of /etc/X11/default-display-manager point to /usr/sbin/gdm

The chkconfig status for GDM shows that it's off on all run levels… could that be it? I tried running:

sudo chkconfig --add gdm 

and just got errors…

Any ideas? How can I get GDM to automatically come up again? Any/all help is appreciated!

-M

Update 1: I've tried running dpkg-reconfigure gdm but nothing seems to happen and it just returns me to the prompt (no errors).

Update 2: If I press CTRL-ALT-F7 at the command login prompt, I see what appears to be the linux boot-up console output. I noticed the following lines at the bottom:

** (gdm-binary:1256): WARNING **: Failed to acquire org.gnome.DisplayManager
** (gdm-binary:1256): WARNING **: Could not acquire name; bailing out.

I think this is the cause of the problem but I'm not sure what it means. I'm going to try uninstalling and reinstalling GDM.

Update 3: I uninstalled gdm (apt-get remove gdm) and reinstalled it (apt-get install gdm). That seemed to address the errors in update #2 but it still won't start automatically on it's own. As a temporary workaround, I also added /usr/sbin/gdm & to /etc/rc.local and that seemed to start it… but I dunno… seems a bit "unclean".

I don't know if its helpful or not, but I have a tri-monitor system (one nVidia 9400 and one integrated nvidia mobo video) — all monitors are on a separate xscreen. There are no issues with displays when I manually start GDM.