Restarting Gnome 3 in Debian Wheezy – Steps

debiangnome3xorg

What's the correct way to restart Gnome 3 (and Xorg) under Debian 7.0 Wheezy?

I've seen older documentation on how to this, but it is outdated.

The ctrl+alt+backspace shortcut no longer works by default.

Running sudo /etc/init.d/gdm3 restart from Gnome terminal just gives me a blank screen with blinking underscore and never properly reboots the X session.

Best Answer

You need to issue the command for restarting the X server from outside the X session:

Switch to a virtual terminal using CTRL+ALT+Fi with i falling between 1 to 6 inclusive (2 to 7 inclusive if you're on Fedora or RHEL).
Log in at the prompt
Run sudo /etc/init.d/gdm3 restart or sudo service gdm3 restart
Reattach to the original screen using CTRL+ALT+Fi, where i is the higher screen number of the original X session, F7 should be the default on Debian

Related Solutions

Restart GNOME without restarting Xorg

You should be able to restart Gnome with

 gnome-shell --replace

From the manual:

DESCRIPTION
   GNOME Shell provides core user interface functions for the GNOME 3 desktop,
   like switching to windows and launching  applications.  GNOME  Shell  takes
   advantage  of  the  capabilities of modern graphics hardware and introduces
   innovative user interface concepts to provide  a  visually  attractive  and
   easy to use experience.

OPTIONS
   --replace
          Replace the running window manager

How to Get GNOME 3 Working in Debian Wheezy Under VMware

The problem is that the graphics driver xserver-xorg-video-vmware was compiled without 3D acceleration support. This has already been fixed for newer releases, and is in debian jessie.

The Solution
Recompile the package with 3D acceleration support

install dependencies for VMware Tools
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) make gcc
Install the dependencies and build the driver package
mkdir tmp && cd tmp
sudo apt-get install libxatracker-dev
sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-video-vmware
sudo apt-get source xserver-xorg-video-vmware -b
sudo dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-vmware*.deb
Reboot the machine

If that did not work, try these additional steps:

mount the VMware tools cdrom and install VMware Tools
sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
tar xvzf /media/cdrom/VMwareTools-9.6.1-1378637.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl -d
Reboot the machine

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Restart GNOME without restarting Xorg

How to Get GNOME 3 Working in Debian Wheezy Under VMware

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