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Re: GDM, getty and VTs



Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> writes:

> it’s been a long-standing tradition on Linux to have 6 started getty
> processes, in tty1 to tty6. However this doesn’t correspond anymore to
> the way we use our machines. 
>       * I don’t think we need more than 2 of these. They are still
>         useful for servers or when some disaster happens in the GUI, but
>         who opens 6 console sessions nowadays? 

I do, and I suspect that some blind users have a similar habit.
The point here is that X11 is really not stable enough for us to be
useful on a daily basis (at least that is my experience).  I still prefer
virtual terminals over any sort of X11 based terminal, if its not
for stability its for speed.  X11 terminals are noticeably more sluggish
than real virtual consoles, and the overhead involved in screen reading
is just ridiculous.

> To make things worse, the latest GDM upstream version doesn’t include a
> tty manager anymore. Each started X server will simply use the first
> available VT. Red Hat can afford to do that because their gdm is started
> by the inittab (which is really a bad idea, but well), but in Debian
> this means it takes tty1, stomping on the getty that gets launched here
> later.
>
> So before we start adding hacks on top of the existing, maybe now is the
> time to think about how we want to use our VTs.
>
> 1/ What should be on tty1? Ideally, we should have the display manager
> here if it is started, and we should have a getty otherwise. 

[...]

> 2/ How do we prevent bad interaction between console VTs and graphical
> VTs? (Of course this is closely related to question 1.)

I think graphical environments shouldn't start ignoring the existance of
VTs.
It certainly feels that way to me upon reading your description.

<rant>
VTs have been around longer than X11, why do people have to forcefully
break things which perfectly worked in the past?

I think it is a misunderstanding to conclude that VTs are really
not useful anymore.  Linux has always been about choice (to me at
least), something I start to miss in recent years.
</rant>

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