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Hi there, |
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|
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I'm fairly experienced with Linux and have been using Gentoo for over |
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3 years, but mostly I only use it on headless servers, so I'm afraid |
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I don't know much about GUI stuff. |
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|
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I've just installed Gentoo on my PS3, which I want to use mostly for |
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playing DVDs at the moment (and as a MythTV frontend eventually). My |
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expectations when running X (let's say adding /etc/init.d/xdm to the |
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default runlevel) are that I'm presented with a login prompt, there |
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should be a mouse cursor & stuff and when I log in I should be |
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presented with a terminal window in which I can type my command to |
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run `mplayer` or whatever. |
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|
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I'd expect shortly to get mplayer or vlc or something running |
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automatically when the system completes booting-up - this is what |
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MythTV users typically do so that their system behaves more like a TV- |
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appliance than a Linux machine - but I'd like to skip that for the |
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moment whilst I log in as my own user, play with different media |
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players & work out which one suits me best. |
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|
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Gentoo for the PS3 is supplied as a LiveCD for chrooting and a stage4 |
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tarball - I've only ever used stage1 (3 or more years ago) and stage3 |
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(more recently) tarballs in the past. This stage4 is quick to set up |
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and the basics seem to work very well - I can log in at the |
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framebuffer & surf the internet using elinks :D. This stag4 also |
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includes fluxbox, which I haven't used before & am not really |
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interested in but which I haven't uninstalled yet. |
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|
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The Gentoo X Server Configuration HOWTO <http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/ |
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xorg-config.xml> has much that doesn't seem relevant to me right now, |
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seeing as the stage comes with both Xorg itself and a suitable |
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xorg.conf for the PS3 preinstalled, but if I skip to just after code |
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listing 3.6 it tells me how the value of XSESSION is read from /etc/ |
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rc.conf |
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|
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Reading /etc/rc.conf I find: |
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# Xsession - will start a terminal and a few other nice apps |
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This seem perfect for me. I don't care that it's described elsewhere |
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as ugly - I think this is twm, Xorg's own default window-manager? - |
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but if it pops open a terminal window when I log in, and maybe xclock |
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then I'm good to go. |
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|
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What confuses me is that this doesn't work. It works perfectly if I set: |
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XSESSION="fluxbox" |
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- I get the fluxbox menubar at the bottom of the screen and I can |
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open terminal windows & stuff |
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but not when I set |
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XSESSION="Xsession" |
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|
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Diagnostics I can think of: |
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$ grep ^X /etc/rc.conf |
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XSESSION="Xsession" |
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$ ls -l /etc/X11/Sessions/ |
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total 8 |
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-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2187 Jun 10 19:31 Xsession |
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-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 22 Jun 10 19:50 fluxbox |
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$ grep DISPLAYMANAGER /etc/conf.d/xdm |
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DISPLAYMANAGER="xdm" |
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|
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When I log in remotely & run `sudo /etc/init.d/xdm start` I get a |
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simple login window with an X11-type logo on the right-hand side. |
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Once I use the connected keyboard & mouse - which work perfectly - to |
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enter my user & password I see a window titled "Session Menu"; it |
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appears to have a kind of text box in which is displayed |
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"chooseSessionListWidget" - all I can choose is the "Failsafe / |
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Default" which gives me a grey X11 background with the (correct) |
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chunky black X cursor. No terminals or other windows open and I'm |
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unable to work out how the heck to start an app. When I `sudo /etc/ |
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init.d/xdm restart` via SSH I again get the login window and this |
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time the Session Menu says "fail safe" in the "text box" - I now have |
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extra load session & delete session buttons but they don't do |
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anything useful. |
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|
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I have followed the pointers in the "startx no longer gives gnome" |
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thread <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/185659> but |
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no joy. If, instead of starting `/etc/init.d/xdm`, I log in at the |
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framebuffer prompt and type ` XSESSION="Xsession" startx` I again get |
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the "Session Menu" window and the X cursor, but this time a black |
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background behind that widow and a _black_ screen when I log in. |
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|
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There's no .xsession stuff in my home directory - I even deleted |
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~/.*to be paranoid-sure of this. Whups, there goes my bash history!! |
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None of the log files show anything useful or relevant - I've even |
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run `watch -n 0.3 ls -lt /var/log/` and the only ones that change are |
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xdm.log, Xorg.0.log and the weird binary file wtmp. They all show X |
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starting swimingly but not the sesssion stuff. I don't know what else |
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to say. |
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|
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What's weird is that I _did_ see the expected terminal windows |
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opening yesterday, but I can't reproduce them now. The behaviour |
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seemed to be correct when I ran `startx` but not when I added xdm to |
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the default runlevel & started it that way. But now it doesn't work |
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at all. |
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|
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I've attached the actual /etc/X11/Sessions/Xsession file, but I'm |
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sure this is unchanged - I'm sure it's exactly as shipped by Gentoo |
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by default. I've thought about replacing that with a simple `echo |
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"hello world`", but I'm not sure how to do that within the X11 |
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environment. |
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|
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Many thanks indeed for the time you've taken reading this, and for |
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your patience and in advance for any help or suggestions you can offer, |
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|
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Stroller. |