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I'm trying to get the full gnome experience and I was trying to switch from lightdm to gdm3. I did this by changing /etc/X11/default-display-manager.

The problem is that, after closing the session, gdm3 never starts. After rebooting the system never shows the login screen and after a while I get the "default resolution" screen (which also doesn't work btw, since I can't select any of the options with the keyboard or the mouse).

I tried launching gdm3 from the console shell and it fails silently.

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Reset to default
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Editing /etc/X11/default-display-manager does not work properly as you have discovered, but running the command dpkg-reconfigure gdm3 in 16.04 and later releases will cause gdm to reload its configuration upon the next reboot.

Open the terminal and run sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3. This will open up a new window allowing you to select either gdm or lightdm as the default login display manager.

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  • Worked like a charm after rebooting. Thanks. Just logout didn't do it, since there was a warning after reconfigure: gdm.service is not active, cannot reload. invoke-rc.d: initscript gdm3, action "reload" failed.
    – ferdez
    Jun 21, 2017 at 11:29
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    after choosing gdm3 in the screen that appears after I type in the command, I get this error: gdm.service is not active, cannot reload. invoke-rc.d: initscript gdm3, action "reload" failed.
    – Tooniis
    Jul 24, 2017 at 19:39
  • You have posted 3 questions about Ubuntu 17.04. Is this happening in 17.04 by any chance? If so, see this bug report: gdm package tries to restart service and fails.
    – karel
    Jul 24, 2017 at 19:46

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