Desktop profile switching USE default to elogind

Modern desktop environments make use of PAM session tracking for users, login sessions and seats. [1] The most user-visible part of that is device and file permissions management and reboot/shutdown handling without superuser rights.

Users with systemd can stop reading here and continue with their daily routine.

ConsoleKit2 is unmaintained upstream for more than two years [2]. There are many longstanding bugs and papercuts with consumers that aren't being fixed, not least because these code paths receive very little testing.

Enter the elogind project [3], which is a standalone logind implementation based on systemd code, currently maintained by a fellow Gentoo user. We have had sys-auth/elogind available in Gentoo since the beginning of 2017, and meanwhile it has gained support [4] in KDE Plasma, Gnome [5], Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce, as well as most other former consolekit consumers.

Consequently, the desktop profile is switching away from consolekit to elogind. Users of sys-auth/consolekit who selected a different profile should consider doing the same. A guide is available [6]. Migration is easy, but any existing consolekit session will be broken, and elogind will only begin to work on relogin.

Rely either on the profile, or set USE="elogind -consolekit" in make.conf yourself. Make sure there is no consolekit debris in /etc/portage/package.use:

# grep -R consolekit /etc/portage/package.use

Rebuild all affected consumers and remove sys-auth/consolekit:

# emerge --ask --changed-use --deep @world # emerge --depclean consolekit

Optional, but recommended in case of trouble such as missing reboot/shutdown capabilities in the display manager:

# rc-update add elogind boot

For users of ~/.xinitrc instead of one of the supported DMs, do not forget to update accordingly (ck-launch-session is gone without replacement).

PS: Subsequently, this will lead to the last-riting of sys-power/pm-utils [7] which is dead even longer than the original ConsoleKit(1) project. KDE Plasma users sticking with sys-auth/consolekit are then going to lose suspend from GUI without superuser rights.

Applies to

sys-auth/consolekit

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