>does running gnome-settings-daemon by hand after the startup works fine?
yes. Following lines are written in the console: Rrdb: "*Label.background" on line 243 overrides entry on line 170 xrdb: "*Text.background" on line 249 overrides entry on line 211 xrdb: "*Label.foreground" on line 255 overrides entry on line 171 xrdb: "*Text.foreground" on line 261 overrides entry on line 212 ] >does running gnome-session from a debug session displays anything useful on >the command line? First, I get following line in the console: SESSION_MANAGER=local/pointerouge:/tmp/.ICE-unix/4816 Then the top-left gray square appears. Nothing new in the console. Finally, few minutes later, the desktop appears and I get these lines in the console: ------------------------------------ (nautilus:4974): libgnomevfs-WARNING **: Failed to open session DBUS connection: Unable to determine the address of the message bus (try 'man dbus-launch' and 'man dbus-daemon' for help) Volume monitoring will not work. Gnome-Message: gnome_execute_async_with_env_fds: returning -1 libnotify-Message: Unable to get session bus: Unable to determine the address of the message bus (try 'man dbus-launch' and 'man dbus-daemon' for help) (gnome-panel:4972): libgnomevfs-WARNING **: Failed to open session DBUS connection: Unable to determine the address of the message bus (try 'man dbus-launch' and 'man dbus-daemon' for help) Volume monitoring will not work. alarm-notify.c:366 (alarm_notify_new) - Alarm Notify New alarm-notify.c:302 (alarm_channel_setup) - Channel Setup alarm-notify.c:241 (alarm_notify_init) - Initing Alarm Notify alarm-queue.c:1871 (alarm_queue_init) alarm-queue.c:218 (queue_midnight_refresh) - Refresh at Wed Nov 1 01:00:00 2006 evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Setting timeout for 9412 1162339200 1162329788 evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Wed Nov 1 01:00:00 2006 evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Tue Oct 31 22:23:08 2006 libnotify-Message: Unable to get session bus: Unable to determine the address of the message bus (try 'man dbus-launch' and 'man dbus-daemon' for help) (gnome-panel:4972): Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_widget_size_allocate(): attempt to allocate widget with width -5 and height 24 ------------------------------------ After this step, I started gnome-settings-daemon, but it failed a bug- buddy opened a new report (see attachment). ** Attachment added: "gnome-settings-daemon bug report" http://librarian.launchpad.net/4942226/gnome-settings-daemon-rapport-d-anomalies.txt -- gnome-settings-daemon crashes at login https://launchpad.net/bugs/61381 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs