[CentOS] SOLVED: Mate desktop crashes at startup after update to Centos 8.5.2111

Thu Nov 18 21:30:20 UTC 2021
isdtor <isdtor at gmail.com>

Frank Cox writes:
> On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 10:27:32 -0700
> Greg Bailey wrote:
> 
> > > >From the GDM login screen I enter my password and select Mate.  The screen
> > > >goes blank and appears to be loading the Mate desktop as usual, but just
> > > >at the point where the desktop should appear it returns to the GDM login
> > > >menu.
> > >
>  
> > The only difference in my case is that I use lightdm from the 
> > stenstorp/lightdm copr repo instead of GDM.
> 
> Installing lightdm from the stenscorp/lightdm was indeed the fix.
> 
> Now my desktop is back to looking and working like it's supposed to be.
> 
> For the next guy who needs to do this, here are the exact commands needed:
> 
> dnf copr enable stenstorp/lightdm
> dnf install lightdm
> systemctl disable gdm.service
> systemctl enable lightdm.service
> 
> Then reboot.  You'll probably have to select Mate from the drop-down list at the top right of the login screen but you only have to make that selection once.
> 
> Thank you ever so much for the help, Greg!

I had the same experience with Rocky - not able to login after the update and being returned to the login screen. In this case, the solution was to install the latest vbox guest additions (this is a vbox VM). And I'm still using gdm.