Light DM issues

[VastOne]

@superwow

This is SID... this is expected in some ways but as has been indicated and ESPECIALLY after such a mass kernel update, there will be major updates to nearly all applications in some way or another or they die. In that process there are apt to be issues (pun intended)

The borkage is 'expected' in some channels and you will most likely hear "that is what you should expect running SID"

We do not believe in that Bull Shit here... Most of us have been running SID for 5 years or more and have never seen anything quite like this but we know it is possible.  We do not run from issues ... the reason why we are strong and stay with it?  We expect these issues and it is not painful because it is 'broke' it is painful because we cannot solve it, we are solution driven to seek out and find the solution and NOT to be given it ...

lightdm decided to pull back it's own default setup files for whatever reasons and only a blank lightdm setup seems to work.. File a bug report with them ..

ligbt is also an issue with the mutex problems and that one will most likely resolve itself soon, or applications will need to patch it to get it to work or if not maintained they may not (spaceFM)

Some folks think it is a major systemd issue .. I do not know but I am watching that closely

Debian nor apt nor the package management side is broke..

What statmonkey says here is a golden rule...

As for upgrading frequently the best advice I can give is to watch what it going on, don't update unless you are entirely comfortable with what is changing on your system and if you have questions post something in here for advice.  Understanding how to hold packages is a plus and better to not upgrade than to wipe out something you need or want.  Example I waited a couple of days for Calibre to work through it's in and out before upgrading

Hold on to your britches if you need to .. SID is being a petulant little bastard at the moment...if you hang with it .. it could be another 6 years of gold running.  Notice I have not updated the ISO's on their normal updated cycles.. When this clears, I will put new ones out.  Until then, enjoy a clean install before all of this shit and do what jedi, statmonkey and lwfitz and several others have suggested.. wait it out ..

I've got your back!

[VastOne]

I believe that this is indeed SID throwing a tantrum, and will be over soon.  Fingers crossed.  Reading through that 'other' thread, doesn't shed any light for me on the current state of events, and I'm fairly certain has nothing to do with what is happening now.

A few days of patience, all will probably be sorted out...

Well said...

I have not read that other thread at all ... we have enough of our own issues with what is affecting VSIDO and it's users to be concerned with another thread on lightdm and SID

[statmonkey]

I believe that this is indeed SID throwing a tantrum, and will be over soon.  Fingers crossed.  Reading through that 'other' thread, doesn't shed any light for me on the current state of events, and I'm fairly certain has nothing to do with what is happening now.

A few days of patience, all will probably be sorted out...

Well said...

I have not read that other thread at all ... we have enough of our own issues with what is affecting VSIDO and it's users to be concerned with another thread on lightdm and SID

Hey Jedi, I did read that thread and most of it is polkit stuff so always good to see what others have run into.  I will point out that the aptosid forums have been really quiet, I think we are seeing more in VSIDO because of the particular lean and mean way the distro is built. 

This is a distro again that is built to be just what it needs to be.  That means not more is there than should be and not less.  That is, paraphrasing Col. Kurtz "like a snail crawling along the edge of a razorblade".  It also recognizes how amazing that we have not had bigger issues since ... well forever.  I did see something like this in my first Sid experience on ... (oy can't remember the name aptosid was in the olden dayz) any way its been a long time.  It will get sorted.  I again think it is a great many things in Debian being worked on at once, kind of a perfect storm.  I am also not sure that systemd has anything to do with it at all, but the fact that the individual is standing over the body with a smoking gun, powder burns and a wry smile on her face makes me suspicious  

VO has your back and we all have his.  Just hang in there.

[lwfitz]

Ive been threatening VastOne for two years that I am going to format my drives and install Windows 98 and this time I just might do it!

Seriously though, growth comes more from failure than it does success. So while this breakage is an inconvenience to some and a serious pain in the butt to others I think its important to look at the big picture. VSIDO goes two+ years without any real issue and hits a plateau as far as growth goes. Now just a few days later we are digging in trying to figure out what we can change or fix.

SID by definition is unstable and although "we" dont accept that as gospel its important that when things do break we react accordingly.

[PackRat]

I am thinking that your degree of problems is going to be directly related to what customizations you have made and where you have made them.

I'm leaning toward this one - other than the mutex issues with mirage and maybe a couple other apps, I've had no issues - none with lightdm.

Some folks think it is a major systemd issue .. I do not know but I am watching that closely

unfortunately, this will be a first response for a while as systemd gets more integrated into the various distros; downside is a person could be chasing their tail for a while and overlook something that would have otherwise been - for lack of a better word - obvious. Kind of reminds me of those strategy sessions in the TV series House.

[VastOne]

That is a perfect analogy Packrat, good one.  Any House references is a win-win

[PackRat]

So we can rule out Lupus?

[VastOne]

Organophosphate poisoning is my guess... deliberate and has everyone fooled   

[jeffreyC]

Though I hate to disrupt a good House riff;

Has anyone considered switching to SLiM or some other login manager?

[VastOne]

Yes.  I have SliM all lined up and ready to replace lightdm. The issue I  have is SliM is no longer maintained.. anything else I have tried has flat out SUCKED... and SliM has none of the features LightDM has

I am open to suggestions

[PackRat]

Couple of items -

Linux Mint uses (used?) a fork of GDM-2 as their display manger; looks to still be maintained - https://github.com/linuxmint/mdm
If it's being used on Mint Debian Edition, it may be easy enough to set it up in the apt sources. I may go ahead and build that from source later in the week if I get motivated. Might require Does require a boat load of gnome dependencies though.

Any VSDIO user have the skills to code a display manager in bash (python, PERL)? I know there are some display managers written in bash that the Arch users came up with. I unfortunately, do not have coding skills.

Go without a display manager. Fluxbox is the only window manager installed by default. Create a .xinitrc that launches with the appropriate services for automounting etc ... and launch startx by default. Would require adding xinit to the iso.

[VastOne]

^ I did build and setup MDM and it appears to have issues and depends on a shitload of junk.. (IMO) thanks for that suggestion

I have also installed and am playing with xinit and it's rc.  I have easily setup fluxbox but will research Arch wiki and forum to get the 'appropriate services for automounting etc' settings needed

If you have examples or knowledge fire away... I have no issue getting rid of it all to get it right

[PackRat]

my .xinitrc for fluxbox; should provide automounting and work with any window manager of choice -

Code Select Expand

#!/bin/sh

########################################################################
##  Merge in defaults and keymaps                                     ##
########################################################################

userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

if [ -f $sysresources ]; then
    /usr/bin/xrdb -merge $sysresources
fi

if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
    /usr/bin/xmodmap $sysmodmap
fi

if [ -f $userresources ]; then
    /usr/bin/xrdb -merge $userresources
fi

if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then
    /usr/bin/xmodmap $usermodmap
fi

########################################################################
##  Start xfce Desktop Environment                                    ##
########################################################################

if [ -z "$DESKTOP_SESSION" -a -x /usr/bin/ck-launch-session ]; then
  exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/local/bin/startfluxbox
else
  exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/local/bin/startfluxbox
fi


if you have multiple window managers -

Code Select Expand

#!/bin/sh

DEFAULT_SESSION="$HOME/.defaultWM"
case $1 in

#if pgrep dbus-daemon ; then killall dbus-daemon ; fi # kill all pre-existing dbus instancesi
#eval `dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session` # start dbus and export DBUS_* environment variables

fluxbox)
########################################################################
##  Merge in defaults and keymaps                                     ##
########################################################################

userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

if [ -f $sysresources ]; then
    /usr/bin/xrdb -merge $sysresources
fi

if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
    /usr/bin/xmodmap $sysmodmap
fi

if [ -f $userresources ]; then
    /usr/bin/xrdb -merge $userresources
fi

if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then
    /usr/bin/xmodmap $usermodmap
fi

if [ -z "$DESKTOP_SESSION" -a -x /usr/bin/ck-launch-session ]; then
  exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/local/bin/startfluxbox
else
  exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/local/bin/startfluxbox
fi
;;


i3)
########################################################################
##  Merge in defaults and keymaps                                     ##
########################################################################

userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

if [ -f $sysresources ]; then
    /usr/bin/xrdb -merge $sysresources
fi

if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
    /usr/bin/xmodmap $sysmodmap
fi

if [ -f $userresources ]; then
    /usr/bin/xrdb -merge $userresources
fi

if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then
    /usr/bin/xmodmap $usermodmap
fi

if [ -z "$DESKTOP_SESSION" -a -x /usr/bin/ck-launch-session ]; then
  exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/i3
else
  exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/i3
fi
;;

fvwm)
########################################################################
##  Merge in defaults and keymaps                                     ##
########################################################################

userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

if [ -f $sysresources ]; then
    /usr/bin/xrdb -merge $sysresources
fi

if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
    /usr/bin/xmodmap $sysmodmap
fi

if [ -f $userresources ]; then
    /usr/bin/xrdb -merge $userresources
fi

if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then
    /usr/bin/xmodmap $usermodmap
fi

if [ -z "$DESKTOP_SESSION" -a -x /usr/bin/ck-launch-session ]; then
  exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/local/bin/startfvwm
else
  exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/local/bin/startfvwm
fi
;;


# --- do not edit below this line --

*)
exec  $DEFAULT_SESSION
;;

esac


for multiple window managers, I use:

Code Select Expand

xinit [window manager]

to start the window manager of choice; needs to match one of the .xinitrc entries. Using startx will start the DEFAULT_SESSION listed; defaltWM is basically the same as the .xinitrc for fluxbox that I use. Note that DEFAULT_SESSION is not one of the .xinitrc entries, it is an actual command so it needs to be something separate.

I use to use the multiple window manager .xinitrc with the older versions of slim that read the ~/.xinitrc. Doesn't work as well with the newer versions, the slim.conf needs some modifications to work like the older versions.

I use to go without a display manager because gdm got bloated, and I was never really a fan of lightdm or slim because I never considered them as light on resources as they advertise. It's easy enough to just issue the startx command. I like automounting of removable media, so as long as I can get that into a .xinitrc I'm good.

Using lightdm at the moment so as not to stray from default VSIDO setup. Works better to help you track bugs etc ...

In the wishful thinking category, I always thought it would be cool to have an ncurses based display manager similar in aethetics to ceni that would read the files in /usr/share/xsessions and do all the under the hood stuff that apps like lightdm do.

[VastOne]

^ Thanks PackRat! I am going to test this now... I am going to remove SliM now and only boot to the .xinitrc for fluxbox example

I like your ncurses idea... that would be the perfect answer to this simple task

Or perhaps a zenith solution... it seems very easy as well, a gui wrapper for commands

[statmonkey]

But not today, just peeking in here between races to see what is new.

I am pretty nervous about slim.  I hadn't seen the stuff in arch will look at that.  I don't have a problem working something up and creating a deb out of it assuming I am not re-inventing the wheel (from a time perspective).  Having our own deb has the obvious advantage of our code/our tweaks/and all that good stuff.  I will also peek at what you have posted here PackRat all good stuff.  I looked at MDM and rejected that option for the reasons discussed (at least rejected it for my purposes).  Also I used to have the lightdm code somewhere I can look at tomorrow.  I think working something up would not be a huge deal.  I was planning on re-writing makethumb code this weekend since the glib stuff has made the zenity part of it look very dirty.  I can have a look at this stuff then as well.