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Re: GDM, getty and VTs



On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:39:06 +0100
Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> wrote:

> Le lundi 16 novembre 2009 à 13:55 +0100, Harald Braumann a écrit : 
> > > Just because it is a tradition doesn’t mean it’s the correct way.
> > So far I haven't seen any argument as to why it shouldn't be the
> > correct way.
> 
> It’s broken because: 
>       * there are race conditions in the way VTs are allocated; 
Not if they're allocated statically.
>       * text consoles are statically allocated, which means there are
>         too many for some users and not enough for some others; 
That's easily configurable.
>       * the display manager should run on the first VT.
You keep suggesting this, but I don't agree.

> 
> > >       * New GDM upstream, as is, is completely broken. 
> > That seems to be the only reason. But this is clearly a bug in GDM,
> > that should be fixed there.
> 
> Yes, but there are better ways to fix bugs than mimicking already
> existing bugs.
> 
> > If you want X on another tty, change it in /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers.
> > If you need more ttys, add gettys to /etc/inittab. This system is
> > so simple and flexible, that I don't see how you can improve on it.
> 
> Yeah, sure. Like, you know, dynamic VT allocation and X server.
> 
> > So the solution is to make GDM configurable by a parameter or a
> > config file to set the vt it should start on. 
> 
> You really don’t know what you are talking about, do you?
Well, maybe not, but that's because so far I haven't had nor heard of
any problems with the current system and you refuse to explain what the
real problem is. But I start to suspect that it might have to do with
multiple X servers being started dynamically. If that's the case, and
it does make problems, than that might very well be a reason that's
more important than tradition (though I would prefer a solution that
conserves tradition).

> 
> > > I don’t see this as rocket science software, and it means: 
> > >       * No useless getty processes are started. 
> > I never considered this to be a real problem. 
> 
> I always consider it a problem when there are unneeded processes on
> the system.
I consider a tty-management-daemon an unneeded process

> > >       * tty1 is always the first VT you log on, regardless of your
> > >         setup. 
> > I don't see this as an improvement. I always want X on the same
> > tty, no matter in which order I do things. Or did I misunderstand
> > something here?
> 
> X is not always on the same tty. It is only if you use an antiquity
> like xdm. Even with startx, tty allocation is dynamic.
Thanks to that antiquity, I will be able also in the future to have X
on vt7. And I don't have to run gconf (speaking of unneeded processes).

> > >       * You can start an arbitrary number of text or graphical
> > > consoles, without any configuration.
> > Is this really a requirement? Where are the wishlist bugs of users
> > demanding this? And anyway, a simple script that looks for the next
> > free tty and spawns getty there solves this nice and easy.
> 
> No it does not. Especially since “looking for the next free tty” is
> not a safe operation.
Fair enough. It's just that I never felt the urge to allocate vts
dynamically.

Cheers,
harry

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