Richard, I’d bet that your packages are fine (but i’m not a betting man). It sounds too me like there is something awry w/ your X environment. Perhaps the upgraded packages don’t recognize a config buried somewhere. Here’s a couple things i would try. - Often times there a file in your home directory called .xsession-errors. I’d see if that file exists, and it may offer you some hints as to why your window manager is not starting. I recall launching X from a Graphical Login Window to be finicky in linux and error output is difficult to understand. the .xsession-errors file is where i’d look first. - Other idea is to create a new user, then login to the GUI with that user to make sure the GUI starts from a fresh environment. - The last idea i have. It sounds like you’re running gnome from the fact that your using GDM3, I believe the gnome environment files are in .gconf in your home directory. try renaming your .gconf to something like .gconf.backup. You may also want to try the same for .local, although many other applications beyond gnome apps use .local for environment settings. - b

On Mar 18, 2018, at 11:13, Richard Klein <rich@richardklein.org> wrote:

I'm running Kali, which is based on Debian. Recently, after some updates, the computer would only boot to a text prompt; no GUI. I found that, somehow, I had a more recent version of a Gstreamer-plugins library than GDM3 could run on. I removed the library, then re-installed GDM3, letting it choose whatever libraries it depended on. That worked, to a point. It boots to the GUI now, and gives me a login prompt. I enter my username and password successfully, but then I get a solid-color background, a mouse cursor, and nothing else; no icons, no status bars, no menus, no apparent response to mouse clicks.

My guess is I still need to re-install something else that runs on top of the display manager, but I don't know what. Any ideas? _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug