See https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=683755#c20 Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install gdm-3.5.91-r1 2. Reboot, log in as root, run `gdm` or `/etc/init.d/xdm start` (with gdm). Actual Results: DEBUG(+): Lost GDM name on bus Expected Results: Gdm starting just fine. Because daemonize happens around the bus_reconnect call , the dbus thread waiting for the NameAcquired response gets killed way to soon so it doesn't know it acquired the name. This is evidenced in the attached strace to that upstream bug. Putting the deamonize before g_type_init solves this particular bug.
Created attachment 324210 [details] gdm-3.5.91-fix-daemonize-regression.patch manually adjusted to fix the dbus thread exiting to soon due to daemonization.
An alternative to this is getting rid of the patch and instead patching /usr/sbin/gdm (which is a shell script) to do exec setsid /usr/sbin/gdm-binary "$@" Adding that setsid will result in the same behavior as the corrected C patch.
I believe this was fixed in >=gdm-3.6.0, which has a rewritten daemonize patch. Please reopen if the bug still occurs with the current gdm from the gnome overlay.