seems that my problem was caused by gnome-session not being installed (don't know how!). I issued 'sudo apt-get install gnome-session' and it installed it again, now everything seems fine.
-- [intrepid] gnome doesn't start any more. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/269409 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Desktop Bugs, which is subscribed to meta-gnome2 in ubuntu. -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs