xdm rc scripts

[Jose M Rodriguez]

El Sábado, 19 de Febrero de 2005 21:03, Dejan Lesjak escribió:
> On Saturday 19 of February 2005 20:24, Jose M Rodriguez wrote:
> > El Sábado, 19 de Febrero de 2005 19:55, Dejan Lesjak escribió:
> > > On Friday 18 of February 2005 22:25, Jose M Rodriguez wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > > I launch PRs ports/74000 and ports/74003 time ago, to make
> > > > launch of xdm from a rcNG script possible (Not mandatory).
> > > >
> > > > I think that this must be part of X11 clients ports, but if
> > > > someone find any issue with this, let me know.
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > > Some of my issues:
> > > In my opinion there is no need for a rc script to start xdm,
> > > since this is already taken care of by /etc/ttys which also
> > > starts gettys on other ttys - so all of gettys and xdm, which
> > > "[...] provides services similar to those provided  by [...]
> > > getty [...]" are in one place. This putting of configuration of
> > > things which are similar seems to be exactly what you intended,
> > > or am I completely mistaken?
> >
> > Not really.
> > First, the offered scripts are the only method I know to unifor
> > launch xdm/gdm/kdm.  gdm can't be launch from /etc/ttys.
>
> Yes, but as I already explained, having a script that would take care
> of (at least) 4 ports in one port doesn't seem the right way to go,
> so I was explicitly talking only about xdm here. The only way that
> such script would make sense (in my opinion) would be if it was
> installed in base (which I don't think would be good for other
> reasons) or by separate port (which would seem overkill for
> installing an optional script as opposed to rc_subr which installs
> script that is required by several ports).
> However it would perhaps be nice if you could submit this alternative
> way of starting display managers to doc@ and they might consider
> adding it to Handbook as an example.
>
> > > Furthermore the PRs you submitted would require us to patch
> > > XFree86 and X.Org code which is not necessary, because that code
> > > is perfectly fine and has worked, works and probably will work
> > > for some time to come. We have in X11 ports quite a few of
> > > patches which are needed to
> >
> > The patches to Xorg/X11 code are not needed for the scripts.  Only
> > install the rc script.  The patches try to solve a real race
> > problem between init (the gettys) and gdm (which must be launch
> > from localpackage).
> >
> > This is documented in main XFree86/Xorg docs.  If gdm/xdm/kdm
> > doesn't have 'hard assigned' an vt, it may stole vt (in the FreeBSD
> > case, vt0/vt1) if it get running before init launch gettys.
> >
> > If this happens (I often get this in fast machines), you may end in
> > front of a gdm login script, with mouse, but without any keyboard
> > input.
>
> Changing things so that xdm starts from rc script seems like a
> regression then. See as far as I understand things work just fine now
> and I want to know if changing then really brings enough benefits
> that would merit patching vendor sources and adding two files in
> ports tree. I'm also concerned about possible confusion that would
> result in having these rc files installed - users changing both
> /etc/ttys and rc.conf and weird problems that could result in that.
>
> > > split installation of X11 distribution into separate pieces to
> > > hopefully ease maintenance for users in case where only one
> > > component needs updating. These are the patches that will never
> > > be submitted to upstreams, since they are completely ports
> > > specific and both of X11 build fine without them. Your patch to
> > > programs/xdm/config/Imakefile would increase the burden of
> > > maintaining local patches for what, at least to me so far,
> > > doesn't seem like something that actually needs patching - xdm on
> > > FreeBSD will take the first virtual terminal available so
> > > hardcoding default doesn't seem to be the right way. Which brings
> > > me to another point... In your PR, you mention "race problems".
> > > Could you please explain
> >
> > Allready done.
>
> Thanks.
>
> > > what do you mean by this. If there is a problem that would be
> > > introduced with starting xdm through rc script, then that is
> > > another reason not to abandon the long time documented way of
> > > doing things, which works quite well. Note that this only goes
> > > for xdm. If there is
> >
> > I still have some FreeBSD-2.x machines running, but I prefer
> > install FreeBSD-5.  I think there're really good reasons to
> > _permit_, not _force_ the use of a rcNG script.
>
> And it is permitted, nothing prevents user to create a rc script and
> run xdm from that. There are many things that can be done in a way
> that is neither recommended nor documented, but I believe that the
> way that presently is documented works well and don't see a reason to
> complicate it.
>
> > > any script eventually included in either X11 -clients, then that
> > > script cannot take responsibility of starting things which come
> > > from other ports such as gdm or kdm (BTW, you forgot wdm). Kdm
> > > and gdm
> >
> > Point me to the port and I'll take a look on this.
>
> It's conveniently named wdm and resides in x11/wdm.
>
> > > have their own maintainer teams who know how to start their
> > > programs properly and intruding into their territory with this
> > > script seems neither appropriate nor wise (consider that the way
> > > in which wdm starts changes in one version - how intuitive would
> > > it be to expect people to upgrade xorg-clients to get wdm
> > > working, not to mention why would people who don't use wdm or any
> > > foodm for that matter need to upgrade their ports). In short:
> > > stuffing startup of all display managers into one script would
> > > seem a bad idea.
> >
> > rcNG have enough resorces to cope with this without need of futher
> > scripts cahnges.
>
> I apologise, I don't understand what you mean by this or how it
> relates to the concern I've written.
>

The script take gdm/kdm/Xserver as 'very common special cases', but you 
may use this to launch any xdm-like program. even from 
only /etc/rc.conf

This may be more customize using /etc/rc.conf.d/xdm. I allready use this 
for NetStation style kiosk constructs.

> > > So I haven't been convinced so far that making rc script for
> > > purpose of starting a kind of getty would be either needed or
> > > something that would simplify things. I don't believe that
> > > rc.conf is the only file users edit after their FreeBSD
> > > installation. I also don't believe that it would be good if
> > > things were changed so that rc.conf would be the only file users
> > > would need to edit. There was mentioned a question of policy vs.
> > > features among the thread discussing this... I don't believe a
> > > policy is dictated by having an example of starting xdm in
> > > /etc/ttys file - users can still make their own rc script if they
> > > want and configure it as it fits their purpose, be it "old style"
> > > rc script or rcNG one.
> > >
> > >
> > > Dejan
> >
> > well, I'll close the PRs.
> >
> > thanks for your time,
>
> Oh, no problem about time and I'm also not necessarily right. I just
> wanted to voice my concerns with introducing this scripts and if I've
> managed to sound to negative I do apologise. But I will stress once
> again that such a change would in my opinion (and again this is my
> opinion if there are many people that think otherwise, I'm sure they
> will followup) need serious benefits to be done.
> The script for starting xfs that you also suggested was on the other
> hand a great idea and it also doesn't affect things in the way xdm
> one would so thank you for your time and suggestions.
>
>
> Dejan

To be honest, I've enough things in my TODO list to cope with this.

I only have to get this working for one of my customers, and I can  
fullfill this with local patches.

--
  josemi