Gfilui

I just installed Ubuntu 17.10 over the weekend (I just switched from Arch) and I've been using the stock gnome3 based "Ubuntu on Xorg" desktop environment, but my primary window manager on Arch was StumpWM.

I like the notification system, auto-detection of devices like printers, and the overall "just works" that Ubuntu/Gnome provides, but I still miss the way StumpWM manages my windows.

I remember when I last used Gnome maybe 10 years ago or so that you could easily switch from Metacity/Sawfish to whatever window manager you choose, but I haven't figured out how to do that with gnome3. I've tried to create a new stumpwm.desktop file under /usr/share/xsessions/gnome-stump.desktop with the following:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=StumpGnome
Comment=Gnome with StumpWM managing windows
TryExec=gnome-session
Exec=gnome-session --session=stumpwm
Type=Application

I also have the following in /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/stumpwm.session

[GNOME Session]
Name=StumpWM
RequiredComponents=org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.A11yKeyboard;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.A11ySettings;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Clipboard;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Color;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Datetime;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Housekeeping;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Keyboard;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.MediaKeys;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Mouse;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Power;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.PrintNotifications;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Rfkill;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.ScreensaverProxy;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Sharing;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Smartcard;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Sound;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Wacom;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.XSettings;stumpwm

However, when I try to log in to the StumpGnome session I just get a black screen and then I'm taken back to the GDM prompt. I think this might have something to do with Wayland vs Xorg, but I'm not sure how to verify that because I don't know where the relevant logs would be.

I have three questions. First and most importantly, how do I use StumpWM as the window manager with gnome3? Second, how do I specify that I'd like to use Xorg instead of Wayland for an Xsession desktop entry? Lastly, where can I find the logs relevant to failed desktop environment initialization?

Thanks a lot.

As GNOME Shell is the window manager, no, you can't really replace the WM and run GNOME Shell (ie GNOME 3).

You are trying to create a session in the same way you would have with GNOME 2.x 10 years ago. This does not work with modern systemd and such. You will have to create a systemd target for the session you wish to define, and do something like this in your gnome-stump.desktop:

Exec=/usr/lib/gnome-session/run-systemd-session gnome-stump-session.target

You can browse the normal targets in /usr/lib/systemd/user/ as a reference.