gnome-session

gnome-session is an open source and free software project, an important component of the GNOME desktop environment, providing essential components for its sessions. It comprises of the GNOME session manager, a configuration program that allows users to choose which applications start at login, as well as several other session management related utilities.

An essential component of GNOME

gnome-session is a required component of the GNOME desktop environment, and it is distributed along the GNOME Project. However, users can download the latest sources tarball from our dedicated download section above and install it manually using the instructions below.

Getting started with gnome-session

To install the gnome-session program on your GNU/Linux box, you will have to first install all of its dependencies, which are available from the GNOME Project’s FTP servers, Softoware or the main software repositories of your distribution.

Once all the dependencies have been installed, you can download the latest version of gnome-session from our website, save it on a location of your choice, extract it and open a terminal emulator.

Type the “./configure && make” command to configure and compile the sources, followed by the “make install” command, which should be executed as root or with sudo, to install the program system wide. Both commands are run without quotes.

However, end-users won’t need to install this package on their computers if they already have the GNOME desktop environment installed, nor if they want to install the GNOME desktop environment on top of their operating systems, standalone or alongside another graphical session.

Designed for GNOME

Once again, we should mention that the gnome-session package is a very important application for the entire GNOME desktop environment, designed to handle the main session. It is compatible with a wide range of Linux distributions, supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit instruction set architectures.

What is new in this release:

• Drop deprecated environment variable again
• harden permissions on config dir

What is new in version 3.28.1:

• Tell libICE to stop opening a TCP socket
• Shore up permissions of .config
• Translation updates

What is new in version :

• Drop deprecated bits
• Port to Meson
• Fix crash at shutdown
• Fix session saving
• BSD fixes

What is new in version 3.26.1:

• Log warning fix
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.26.0:

• Translation updates.

What is new in version 3.25.3:

• improved error messages with systemd integration
• fix crash in fail whale if X dies
• fix warning/crash when iterating over extensions
• kill dbus clients at logout
• leverage unicode for clarity and aesthetics
• BSD support improvements
• drop old SSH_AUTH_SOCK on wayland workaround
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.24.1:

• autogoo degooing
• race condition fix with startup and owning the dbus name

What is new in version 3.24.0:

• Fix warnings at startup in check accelerated helper
• print the renderer under wayland in check accelerated helper
• fix gpu info caching logic
• better error checking
• don't tell Qt applications to look like GNOME anymore
• make sure a login shell runs for wayland sessions at startup

What is new in version 3.23.4:

• Fix warnings at startup in check accelerated helper
• print the renderer under wayland in check accelerated helper
• fix gpu info caching logic
• better error checking
• don't tell Qt applications to look like GNOME anymore
• make sure a login shell runs for wayland sessions at startup

What is new in version 3.22.2:

• misc fixes to gnome-session-check-accelerated
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.22.1:

• Fix problem when cancelling the power off dialogue
• Don't set locale information again after the localeexec wrapper already does

What is new in version 3.22.0:

• Small fix for dash users
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.21.4:

• Export renderer string for llvmpipe
• Small heap overflow fix
• Compiler warning fixes
• misc doc fixes
• Futureproof gettext support

What is new in version 3.21.3:

• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.16.0:

• Fix bug in tracking if the session is active
• Fail whale fixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.15.4:

• Allow turning on debugging with an environment variable
• Don't set DISPLAY in wayland sessions
• Add back session-name property
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.15.3:

• port to GDBus
• misc clean ups
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.14.0:

• DOAP updates
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.11.4:

• Fix crash on startup for non-systemd systems
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.11.3:

• Warning fixes
• Use modern methods for finding gsettings schemas
• Fail whale size request fixes
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.11.2:

• Blacklist nv25
• Use new GSubprocess API
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.11.1:

• Fix a possible crash in the presence interface
• gsm-manager: Don't abort when all clients exit (#710480)
• gsm-util: Use g_unsetenv() rather than g_setenv(variable, NULL) (#710485)
• Only support UPower 0.9
• Drop EggSMClient
• Remove gnome-session-properties (#708923)
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.10.1:

• Fix a crash on session end (#709221)
• Translation updates

What is new in version 3.8.4 / 3.10 Beta 2:

• Add new phase for gnome-initial-setup and new phase for mutter-wayland
• Fix deadlock now that idle handling is in mutter
• Drop dead fallback code
• Add bits needed for wayland integration
• rename session-properties to gnome-session-properties
• make shutdown and reboot failable operations
• misc fixes

What is new in version 3.10 Beta 1:

• code style fix ups
• Set _GNOME_IS_SOFTWARE_RENDERING root window property when software rendering
• disable hardware acceleration for poulsbo driver
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.9.5:

• Check errors on D-Bus calls (#705163)
• Set up journal redirection earlier (#703661)
• Reshow end session dialog when inhibitor disappears (#702575)

What is new in version 3.8.4:

• Check errors on D-Bus calls (#705163)
• Set up journal redirection earlier (#703661)
• Always distribute session-selector.ui (#700363)
• Make GsmAutostartApp work with new GLib (#698798)
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.8.2.1:

• Always distribute session-selector.ui (#700363)

What is new in version 3.8.2:

• Make GsmAutostartApp work with new GLib (#698798)

What is new in version 3.8.1:

• Check for logind, not systemd (#696262)
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.8.0:

• Updated translations.

What is new in version 3.7.92:

• Increase phase timeout to 90 seconds
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.7.91:

• Use pkg-config to check for X libraries
• Automatically fallback to software renderering if hardware renderering doesn't pass the sniff test
• Fix positioning of fail whale dialog
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.7.90:

• Add preliminary patch toward systemd-ification
• Fix XSMP clients after shutdown is canceled
• Make build with newer upower
• Adjust for new gnome-desktop idle api
• Add session selector
• Set XDG_MENU_PREFIX
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.7.4:

• Remove the fallback session definition (#687586)
• Remove support for RequiredProviders (#691663)
• Show the fail whale if GNOME shell can't run (#687586)
• Log to the systemd journal when available (#691785)
• Make SIGUSR1 print a line in debug output (#692241)
• Add an InhibitedActions D-Bus property (#692517)
• Reduce default idle timeout to 2 minutes
• Move automatic logout on idle functionality to gnome-settings-daemon (#597030)
• Allow empty sessions (#690866)
• Allow named saved sessions (#613270)
• Updated translations (Hebrew, Lithuanian, Norwegia, Slovak, Persian, Aragonese, Kazakh, Sovenian, Uyghur, Spanish, Belarusian, Assamese, Serbian, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Dutch, Friulian, Galician, Basque, Polish, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Italian).

What is new in version 3.6.2:

• initialize systemd client before acquiring name. Fixes logind race.
• add SessionName property to introspection. Fixes gdbus errors
• drop system inhibitor when necessary. Fixes logind leak.
• fix malloc/g_free mismatch in systemd code
• updated translations

What is new in version 3.6.1:

• Session Manager:
• Don't fall back for zaphod mode multi-screen setups
• Fix build on OpenBSD
• Detect greeter sessions better with systemd
• Updated translations

What is new in version 3.3.2:

• Fix regexp for blacklisting Intel 830-865 hardware (Vincent)

What is new in version 3.2.1:

• Session Manager:
• Refuse to install an idle timeout of 0 seconds (Rodrigo Moya)
• Fix crash on Solaris because of bad comparison (Brian Cameron)
• Translators
• David Planella (ca@valencia)
• Kristjan SCHMIDT (eo)
• Chao-Hsiung Liao (zh_HK)
• Chao-Hsiung Liao (zh_TW)

What is new in version 3.2.0:

• Translators:
• Nilamdyuti Goswami (as)
• Petr Kovar (cs)
• flemming christensen (da)
• Inaki Larranaga Murgoitio (eu)
• Tommi Vainikainen (fi)
• Sweta Kothari (gu)
• Gabor Kelemen (hu)
• Andika Triwidada (id)
• Changwoo Ryu (ko)
• Aurimas AŒernius (lt)