Re: xdm, kdebase, and XFree86 3.3.3.1 status report
On Tue, Apr 27, 1999 at 01:09:39AM -0400, Branden Robinson wrote:
>
> I continue to believe
> that the default configuration for xdm (autostart on boot and manage :0 on
> vt 7) is the most sensible one, being the most popular configuration.
I don't understand why the xdm behaviour was modifyed from hamm's "first
vt available" to a fixed vt7. This unexpectedly breaks systems where
/etc/inittab has vt7 spawning getty. They break without any advice and
at a later moment than the upgrade, as it shows up only after reboot.
It happened to me twice, and the second time made my daughters cry as
their system was unusable after a power down and they had to wait friday
for me coming back home.
The symptom of the problem is: after reboot, xdm starts and does no more
accept keyboard input, so no vc anymore, nor Ctrl-Alt-Bs. If your' not
on a net you have to power down and the reboot in single user.
Comment the vt7 line in /etc/inittab OR remove the vt7 from the line in
/etc/X11/xdm/Xservers
In that file there are very good comments explaining how to write new
lines in it, so I think that the vt7 adding is absolutly gratuitus.
Note that because the usage of a vt line is splitted between two
different conffiles, then the automatic dpkg feature to not upgrade
modifyed conffiles doesn't apply: I modifyed inittab and not Xseervers,
so dpkg upgraded xdm without any advice.
But the problem is now in slink and we can only put out notes on how to
face it. If I had discovered this before slink release I would have
raised a grave bug.
I wander what a newbie encountering this problem can say.
fab
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