dbus-user-session is installed, so I don't think that's the problem. From /var/log/apt/history.log, it looks like it came through when I installed gnome-terminal, probably through some circuitous dependency if it's not explicitly required.
I removed dbus-x11 to test. Now I get a different error than the one I had before: ======================= hedges@bar:~$ dpkg --get-selections | grep dbus-user-session dbus-user-session install hedges@bar:~$ gnome-terminal Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.Terminal: Timeout was reached hedges@bar:~$ dpkg --get-selections | grep dbus-x11 hedges@bar:~$ systemctl status --user dbus.service dbus.socket ● dbus.service - D-Bus User Message Bus Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/dbus.service; indirect; vendor preset: enabled) Active: active (running) since Thu 2017-08-10 21:10:25 UTC; 8min ago Docs: man:dbus-daemon(1) Main PID: 3786 (dbus-daemon) CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/dbus.service └─3786 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --session --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation ● dbus.socket - D-Bus User Message Bus Socket Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/dbus.socket; disabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: active (running) since Thu 2017-08-10 21:10:22 UTC; 8min ago Listen: /run/user/1000/bus (Stream) Process: 3762 ExecStartPost=/bin/systemctl --user set-environment DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/dbus.socket hedges@bar:~$ echo $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus hedges@bar:~$ echo $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR /run/user/1000 hedges@bar:~$ ls -lah /run/user/1000 total 0 drwx------ 4 hedges hedges 100 Aug 10 21:10 . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 Aug 10 21:10 .. srw-rw-rw- 1 hedges hedges 0 Aug 10 21:10 bus drwx------ 2 hedges hedges 120 Aug 10 21:10 gnupg drwxr-xr-x 3 hedges hedges 100 Aug 10 21:10 systemd ======================= I installed dbus-x11 again, but I got the same error again. Rebooted and same error. Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.Terminal: Timeout was reached I verified that other X programs are working through the ssh tunnel, like xeyes and gvim. Thanks. Mark On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 7:14 AM, Simon McVittie <s...@debian.org> wrote: > On Thu, 10 Aug 2017 at 00:31:24 -0700, Mark Hedges wrote: > > Changing the recommends to depends for dbus-user-session won't fix the > > immediate problem, unless gnome-terminal is changed to use something > other than > > `dbus-launch` to do whatever it is that it's trying to do. dbus-x11 > provides > > the dbus-launch executable. dbus-user-session does not. > > % cd gnome-terminal-3.22.2 > % ack dbus-launch > [search produces no results] > > If gnome-terminal strictly requires a working D-Bus session bus, which I > suspect it might due to being implemented with a client/server model, > then the correct dependency is to bump the existing Recommends on > default-dbus-session-bus | dbus-session-bus up to a Depends, as seen > in e.g. gcr and gnome-keyring. In practice this ensures that either > dbus-user-session or dbus-x11 is installed. I have now done this in svn. > > If the DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS environment variable is not set, D-Bus > implementations like gio (GDBus) and libdbus are expected to look for > $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/bus (which is set up by dbus-user-session on systemd > systems, and could in theory be provided by a different implementation > of the dbus-session-bus virtual package on non-systemd systems if someone > does the work), then if that is not found, fall back to running dbus-launch > (which is provided by dbus-x11). gnome-terminal uses gio for all its > D-Bus needs, so it has this behaviour. > > See https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2016/08/msg00554.html for > recommendations. dbus-launch is run by the implementation of the > "autolaunch:" pseudo-transport that is mentioned in that mail. > > Regards, > S >