Re: xdm 4.2.0pre1v1 troubles
martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> writes:
> also sprach Russell Neches <russell@ccs.neu.edu> [2002.07.20.2244 +0200]:
> > xdm isn't configured from XF86Config-4. If X is actually running via
> > "startx," you need to look elsewhere to get xdm to behave itself. It
> > has its own configuration files in /etc/X11/xdm/. I don't use it, so
> > I'm not sure if it is broken in a configuration kind of way, or in
> > some more serious way.
>
> I don't think we understand each other. XF86Config-4 *does* control
> the X server configuration, and the X server is still started for xdm.
> Or put it that way: All I've ever had to do when I got a new graphics
> card, was to amend XF86Config-4. If I didn't do that, xdm wouldn't
> work. And /var/log/xdm.log includes all the output I'd normally get on
> stdout from startx...
Well, as you said, xdm uses X. So, if X works fine without xdm, then
by the process of elimination the configuration issue must lie
elsewhere. I've tweaked kdm and gdm to fix exactly this problem, so I
would imagine that xdm works similarly (since gdm and kdm are
derivative of xdm).
As someone else pointed out, xdm is broken. I don't know _how_ it is
broken. If everything seems to be set up correctly, and it misbehaves
anyway, then maybe it's been patched to only execute /dev/null as the
startup script. ^_^
> > Whenever I've seen behavior like that from xdm, it's been because it
> > was attempting to invoke a startup script that doesn't exist, doesn't
> > have proper permissions or has the wrong ownership. It's also possible
> > that the startup script is invoking something (a window manager or
> > desktop system) that is dumping core or otherwise misbehaving. If
> > that's the case, you are effectively logging out as soon as you log
> > in.
>
> Good thinking, but it's not the cause. The startup scripts execute
> just fine. Aside, Debian's configured so as to employ .xinitrc and
> .xsession from both, xdm and startx. So if it works with one, it
> should work with the other.
That's pretty nifty. My number-one complaint about using display
managers used to be that you had to fiddle and jigger them to a
senible startup, and this was non-trivial for a new user. I stopped
using a display manager some time before I switched to Debian.
Anyway, if you've gotta have a login manager, maybe you'd have better
luck with gdm until the xdm begins working again.
Russell
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