Re: [gdm-list] Ubuntu 8.04 installation fails because of GDM

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Joe:

> I am trying to install Ubuntu 8.04 and get through the main portion 
> until i have to restart the computer. After the restart i get the 
> following error message
>
> "Server Authorization directory  (demon/ServerAuthDir) is set to 
> /var/lib/gdm but is not owned by user 106 and group 114. Please correct 
> the ownership or GDM configuration and restart GDM"
>
> Can  someone tell me how to do this?

Are your passwd, and groups file set up properly?   Note the GDM 
configuration file (in /usr/share/gdm/defaults.conf) should have two
lines in the "[daemon]" section like this:

User=gdm
Group=gdm

Normally the "gdm" user and group are used by GDM, but your distro
might be different.  Assuming the values are both "gdm", then does
user 106 correspond to the "gdm" user and group 114 correspond to the
"gdm" group?  I assume so, or else the error message would be a bit
odd.  But good to check.

Note the /etc/passwd file should have a line that looks something like
this.  The values are separated by colon characters (:), and the
important values to check are the first field which should be the "gdm"
user name and the 3rd field which should be the user id value (106) and
the 4th field which should be the group id value (114).  Like this:

gdm:x:106:114:GDM Reserved UID::

Note the /etc/group file should have a line like this.  The first
field should be the "gdm" group name and the 3rd field should be the
group id value (114).  Like this:

gdm::114:

You can use the "chown" command to change the owner of a file, and the
"chgrp" command to change the group ownership of a file.  I'd use these
commands to fix the group and user ownership of the /var/lib/gdm
directory.

Does this help?

Brian