Bug#814394: xserver-xorg-legacy: Fails to start xserver after upgrade to 1.18.1

[Scott Mcdermott <scott@smemsh.net>]

Julien Cristau on 2016/02/13 +0100 @11:30:30:
> > startx does not longer work after upgrade; `grep EE
> > Xorg.log' shows:
> > 
> >    [  1463.840] (EE) systemd-logind: failed to get
> >    session: The name org.freedesktop.login1 was not
> >    provided by any .service files
> 
> X requires logind ...

It's not supposed to, when using the X wrapper and
needs_root_rights=yes.  There used to be an upstream patch that
even allowed X to start without this, and skip the ioperm check
(it's not actually needed with KMS), which Debian dropped,
because I guess they want to require everyone to use systemd.

However, even with needs_root_rights, startup broke for me
recently as well, I had to install systemd-logind temporarily
until I can switch to a distro which doesn't force me to run
systemd stuff.

Even with systemd-logind installed, you still have to invoke it
on the same tty you run X on, even with needs_root_rights=yes, it
won't change the perms for you.  This, too, worked fine for me up
until a month or so ago.

I think the solution is to just use a distro which does not
require systemd, such as Gentoo.  Debian's X maintainers do not
appear to be interested in making X work without systemd, as it
has for the last 30 years or so...