Hello, Sorry for my English - it's not my native language.
I can reproduce bug in 3 machines: 1. PC: C2D E6400 with GF 8400GS (PCIE) 2. Notebook: i5-2430M with GF 520MX. 3. VMWare Player 7 on notebook with W8.1, i5-5200U, Intel HD (no NV GPU) File: debian-8.1.0-amd64-CD-1.iso (stable) In my case (the same install procedure for 3 machines): Debian 8.1 installed from USB (created by RUFUS, on VM directly from ISO). What I do: 1. Install Debian without graphic desktop. 2. Login. 3. Install sysvinit, sysvinit-core, sysvinit-utils. 4. Reboot. 5. Install MC. 6. Remove CD from repo list in /etc/apt/sources.lst with mcedit. 7. Remove systemd with --purge and --auto-remove. 8. Ban package 'systemd-sysv' with local-pin-init file (as described in update guide) with mcedit. 9. Install gnome. 10. Reboot. 11. Login as regular user (user name: u or user). What I know: 1. I don't think, that all above needs to be done. Other users report bug on standard installation (with systemd). 2. It's hard to reproduce bug because (probably?) there must be an issue with gnome menu to make this bug "working". How to find out, if machine has a bug? When you run game Nibbles, there is no menu there! The same thing for keyboard layout, other games and apps (but not all - maybe its QT, GTK issue etc). Example: http://i.imgur.com/RLedPOM.png 3. Gnome hangs only when you're using root permission with "remember for this session". 4. Maybe (I',m not sure) there must be autologin option turned on. 5. It works (probably) only on standard GNOME (not gnome classic, not gnome wayland). 6. Removing '/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-3.0/keyboard.gnome-settings-plugin' (as described in web) will NOT fix that. How to reproduce? It's quite easy: 1. After login, run root terminal (enter root password, check remember for session - here is your strange root permission/uid for the file created). Probably now you could close terminal, but let it stay on. 2. Open Nibbles and click coupe times in place, where menu should be, move window, click once again. Close it. 3. Open language list from system bar, click show layout. Should be menu there? Probably yes. Click couple times, move window, close. 4. Click on terminal. 5. Click top left corner (superbutton/supermenu or as you called) 6. And it's gene... Animation is stopped (for example file download/GDebi progress bar) or whatever you do in background, mouse working. I can do Ctrl+Alt+F(x) do open another tty. I can log on as root. In HTOP I see high cpu usage by gnome-settings-daemon. Stopping this process don't change anything - gnome not responding. I also see dconf errors described above. Temporary solution is do this: 1. (optionally?) remove '/run/user/1000/dconf/user' file 2. kill gnome-shell process. Then switch to Ctrl+Alt+F7, wait few seconds and gnome start working. Extra info: In gnome-tweak-tool I've switched on minimize/maximize buttons. In theme section, in last position "shell theme" select box is empty, and there is red exclamation sign next to the select box. Bug is also in MATE an Cinnamon, because both has systemd in depend tree (like gnome) - LXDE/XFCE dont use it, so both are safe. Need proof? When you try to use this instruction (with systemd lock): https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/117634-gnu-linux-debian-without-systemd This will happen: - your gnome would be removed with systemd - after systemd lock, you would not be able to install gnome, mate, cinnamon due dependencies (lxde,xfce install without problem) Regards, Wiktor