Abstract - last modified 2022-03-03

How to fix LMDE 3 (Cindy), LMDE 4 (Debbie) and LMDE 5 (Elsie) not sourcing *profiles and not adding user directories to PATH on x-session startup (using the default lightdm display manager).

Use at your own risk - you have to read and accept the disclaimer

Although the tool (and the web page) is still named lmde3_fix_profile, it covers LMDE 3/4/5 versions.

According to reports from user's the missing profile-support does additionally affect the integration of applications installed via snap too. After applying the workaround/fix snap-packages started working as expected.

A more general issue

Updated-Version: As there are seemingly more debian-based distributions affected by the issue - the tool has been updated to allow overriding the distribution and versions-tests. Be aware: you still have to use lightdm as login manager with an unmodified wrapper-setup to be able to use the workaround (the setup will test for it and deny modifications otherwise)!

1 - Test if being affected

There are several ways one could check if profiles get read/sourced on startup.

# debugging x-profiles getting (not) sourced on x-session startup
# comment or remove if not needed anymore (after debugging)
date >>/tmp/pro-$USER.txt
echo "PPID='$PPID' '$0' src '$BASH_SOURCE' for '$USER'" >>/tmp/pro-$USER.txt

2 - Check for missing updates

If you did proof being affected, check next for offered updates related to lightdm (in case the fix got merged/accepted by mint devs in the meantime) and install available updates instead of using this fix.

Any related update/fix will require you to reboot to get into effect. Recheck afterwards again: If your issue is solved - remove/comment any extra edits on your profile-files.

3 - Install the fix

You will need to be member of sudo -group to be able to apply the required modifications. This will typically be the case for the primary user, who did install the machine. To check current user ids and groups use:

id

which will output a similar output (and should list sudo):

demo@lmde-3-cinnamon-64bit:~$ id
uid=1000(demo) gid=1000(demo) groups=1000(demo),27(sudo)
demo@lmde-3-cinnamon-64bit:~$ 

You should first check for last recent information supported by the tool itself. This will just display according technical information and wont start any action at all.

Copy/Paste the entire command, including the leading 'source' and the trailing 'VERINFO' at the end:

source <(wget \
https://www.orcus.de/Entities/linux/lmde3-fix-profile.sh \
-O - 2>/dev/null) VERINFO

Which will show an output similar/identical to (updated version to cover LMDE 3/4/5):

demo@lmde-5-cinnamon-64bit-beta:~$ source <(wget https://www.orcus.de/Entities/linux/lmde3-fix-profile.sh -O - 2>/dev/null) VERINFO
lmde3-fix-profile.sh V005 - 2025-03-03
Add missing *profile support to LMDE 3/4/5 (and other debian based
distributions) using lightdm
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 general information
 lmde3-fix-profile.sh V005 - 2025-03-03
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 With LMDE 2 (betsy) mdm did care about sourcing "*profiles".
 Since LMDE 3 (cindy) did switch the default DM from mdm to lightdm. The
 compile time defaults used with lightdm at debian are set to ignore
 profile files (global and per user) the same as it doesn't add typical
 user related folders to the PATH environment.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Thus defined export env-variables will not be usable with this files:

	/etc/profile
	/etc/xprofile
	/home/demo/.profile  (aka $HOME/.profile)
	/home/demo/.xprofile (aka $HOME/.xprofile)

 Accordingly it is not possible to setup (install- or) user-specific
 environment variables in a common/expected way for the x-session.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 This workaround does
 - add missing/required files (lightdm-wrapper and a helper-file for
   error-/message-display)
 - adjust lightdm config to override a precompiled lightdm setting
   to honor/use the lightdm-wrapper.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Remark: lightdm does use precompiled config-values, where defaults
 differ between the debian- and ubuntu-based versions regarding usage
 of lightdm-wrapper!
	ubuntu / mint 19.x, 20.x -version = active
	debian / LMDE 3,4,5      -version = inactive

 Thus an according config-option has to be set explicitly with LMDE to
 activate the usage of an available lightdm-wrapper.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Before doing any modifications to the installation, the tool does test
 if 
  - you are using a matching version of LMDE 3,4 or 5
  - lightdm is used (a lightdm-session is running) at all
  - there are no other/previous versions of the required additional
    files present
  - the lightdm-wrapper setting is not configured

 If any of this tests wont match, the system will NOT get modified.
 ======================================================================
 modifications done in detail
 add wrapper-file : /usr/sbin/lightdm-session
 create helper-dir: /usr/lib/lightdm
 add helper-file  : /usr/lib/lightdm/config-error-dialog.sh
 adjust DM config : /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
 - replace        : #session-wrapper=lightdm-session
 - with           : session-wrapper=lightdm-session
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 As long the debian-version of lightm  does use a disabled precompiled
 value of 'session-wrapper' it is sufficient to comment the according
 line in the lightdm.conf file and reboot afterwards to disable the
 wrapper again.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Besides sourcing the *profiles, the wrapper (based on the according
 version used at mint 19.0) does source further directories - see
 the wrapper-file for more information.

Applying the actual fix is quiet simple - by using the command without the VERINFO parameter:

source <(wget \
https://www.orcus.de/Entities/linux/lmde3-fix-profile.sh \
-O - 2>/dev/null)

The tool will in any case first check if your are using a matching and unmodified (in regards to lightdm-setup) installation. And will only in this case offer to apply the fix at all.

[click to enlarge]

If you decide to abort the fix using CTRL+C : Nothing has been modified or downloaded by the tool until now at all. Only thing left to do is: Remove/comment potential made debugging-modifications added to the *profile-files.

After using Enter to continue, you will get asked for YOUR password to perform the actual modifications. After successfully entering your pw, the tool downloads required files and adjust the setting of lightdm.conf to make use of it.

[click to enlarge]

As part of the installation there will be a file lmde3-fix-profile.txt created showing information about the used version of the fix, and some general information. Which you could inspect at a later time using:

cat lmde3-fix-profile.txt

which should return something similar to:

demo@lmde-5-cinnamon-64bit-beta:~$ cat lmde3-fix-profile.txt 
----------------------------------------------------
lmde3-fix-profile.sh
V005 - 2025-03-03
Add missing *profile support to LMDE 3/4/5 (and other debian based
distributions) using lightdm
applied at:
Thu 03 Mar 2022 05:23:30 PM CET
----------------------------------------------------
finished without reported errors at:
Thu 03 Mar 2022 05:23:31 PM CET

To get the modifications into effect a reboot of your machine is required.

You should check afterwards, that your profiles are getting sourced now by the x-session as expected. If everything is looking fine, you should remove/comment debug-changes made at your *profile -files.

4 - Further questions

If you have further questions - I often hang around as "orcus" at the #linuxmint-help support-channel at spotchat-irc.