Bug#366516: boot process of fresh etch installation does not lead to graphic login: inconsistent paths /usr/bin vs /usr/bin/X11
Package: xdm
Version: 1.0.1-6
Inconsistencies in downgrading from sid to etch lead me to completely
reinstalling Debian. So, this report is about Debian etch as of today.
I installed from the CD image
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/etch_di_beta2/i386/iso-cd/debian-testing-i386-netinst.iso.
I deselected "desktop" and "standard" to prevent the gnome overhead from
being installed. After rebooting into the fresh system, I updated apt and
upgraded the installed packages via ftp. Then, I installed xserver-xorg,
xdm, my preferred window manager, a few other packages, and all their
friends-and-relations.
(1) At some stage, startx failed because some scripts expect xdm to reside
in /usr/bin/X11 whereas etch installed it in /usr/bin. A symbolic link
helped.
At this stage, if not earlier, I was able to start X11 from tty1 via startx.
(2) /etc/inittab comes with default runlevel=2. It seems that I have to
change this manually.
(3) After the n-th reboot, no progress: still a vt100 login to tty1
instead of the graphic X11 login screen. At last, I found an enlightening
message in xdm.log: "server /usr/bin/X cannot be executed" "server open
failed for :0, giving up" and so on. Another link towards /usr/bin/X11
helped.
xdm developers: _please_ prevent Debian from becoming gnome-only.
- Joachim
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