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Re: GDM, getty and VTs



Le lundi 16 novembre 2009 à 10:33 +0100, Harald Braumann a écrit : 
> I don't see any real arguments against the set-up as it is now or for a
> new way to do it. 

There are no real arguments for keeping the current setup either.

> Just because GDM is broken doesn't mean we should
> change a system that is, in your own words, a long-standing
> tradition. 

Just because it is a tradition doesn’t mean it’s the correct way.
Actually, several people in this thread felt the current way is better,
while explaining they don’t have *enough* text VTs for their personal
use in the default setup.

Let me sum up the situation otherwise: 
      * Current situation is far from perfect. 
      * New GDM upstream, as is, is completely broken. 
      * Fedora solution (start the DM by inittab, without any kind of VT
        allocation at all) is out of question. 
      * Ubuntu solution (big ugly hack to hardcode tty7 but only for the
        first X server started) is out of question.

So we need to write quite come code to fix GDM anyway, and I’d like to
use this opportunity to come up with a better solution than what we have
now, instead of doing this work just to come back to the current
situation.


Let me explain what proposal I have in mind after reading the thread,
now. It might sound a little crazy but I think it would be much better
than just keeping our current setup.

We remove entirely the getty respawning from /etc/inittab. Instead, a
new daemon is started by a regular init script. This daemon does the
following: 
      * Opens all /dev/tty1 to tty6 and display a d-i-like “press enter
        to activate this console” in them. 
      * Provide a very simple interface to reserve a VT, that can be
        queried by the display manager. 
      * Whenever you press enter on a VT, reserve it and start a getty
        process. 
      * When almost all ttys are allocated, start opening tty7+ and so
        on. 
      * If no display manager is started, always run a getty process in
        tty1.

I don’t see this as rocket science software, and it means: 
      * No useless getty processes are started. 
      * tty1 is always the first VT you log on, regardless of your
        setup. 
      * You can start an arbitrary number of text or graphical consoles,
        without any configuration.

Cheers, 
-- 
 .''`.      Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'   “I recommend you to learn English in hope that you in
  `-     future understand things”  -- Jörg Schilling

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