Re: [gentoo-user] XSESSION="Xsession" doesn't work!

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Dienstag, 17. Juli 2007, Stroller wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I'm fairly experienced with Linux and have been using Gentoo for over
> 3 years, but mostly I only use it on headless servers, so I'm afraid
> I don't know much about GUI stuff.
>
> I've just installed Gentoo on my PS3, which I want to use mostly for
> playing DVDs at the moment (and as a MythTV frontend eventually). My
> expectations when running X (let's say adding /etc/init.d/xdm to the
> default runlevel) are that I'm presented with a login prompt, there
> should be a mouse cursor & stuff and when I log in I should be
> presented with a terminal window in which I can type my command to
> run `mplayer` or whatever.
>
> I'd expect shortly to get mplayer or vlc or something running
> automatically when the system completes booting-up - this is what
> MythTV users typically do so that their system behaves more like a TV-
> appliance than a Linux machine - but I'd like to skip that for the
> moment whilst I log in as my own user, play with different media
> players & work out which one suits me best.
>
> Gentoo for the PS3 is supplied as a LiveCD for chrooting and a stage4
> tarball - I've only ever used stage1 (3 or more years ago) and stage3
> (more recently) tarballs in the past. This stage4 is  quick to set up
> and the basics seem to work very well - I can log in at the
> framebuffer & surf the internet using elinks :D. This stag4 also
> includes fluxbox, which I haven't used before & am not really
> interested in but which I haven't uninstalled yet.
>
> The Gentoo X Server Configuration HOWTO <http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/
> xorg-config.xml> has much that doesn't seem relevant to me right now,
> seeing as the stage comes with both Xorg itself and a suitable
> xorg.conf for the PS3 preinstalled, but if I skip to just after code
> listing 3.6 it tells me how the value of XSESSION is read from /etc/
> rc.conf
>
> Reading /etc/rc.conf I find:
>    # Xsession - will start a terminal and a few other nice apps
> This seem perfect for me. I don't care that it's described elsewhere
> as ugly - I think this is twm, Xorg's own default window-manager? -
> but if it pops open a terminal window when I log in, and maybe xclock
> then I'm good to go.
>
> What confuses me is that this doesn't work. It works perfectly if I set:
>    XSESSION="fluxbox"
> - I get the fluxbox menubar at the bottom of the screen and I can
> open terminal windows & stuff
> but not when I set
>    XSESSION="Xsession"
>
> Diagnostics I can think of:
>     $ grep ^X /etc/rc.conf
>     XSESSION="Xsession"
>     $ ls -l /etc/X11/Sessions/
>     total 8
>     -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2187 Jun 10 19:31 Xsession
>     -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   22 Jun 10 19:50 fluxbox
>     $ grep DISPLAYMANAGER /etc/conf.d/xdm
>     DISPLAYMANAGER="xdm"
>
> When I log in remotely & run `sudo /etc/init.d/xdm start` I get a
> simple login window with an X11-type logo on the right-hand side.
> Once I use the connected keyboard & mouse - which work perfectly - to
> enter my user & password I see a window titled "Session Menu";  it
> appears to have a kind of text box in which is displayed
> "chooseSessionListWidget" - all I can choose is the "Failsafe /
> Default" which gives me a grey X11 background with the (correct)
> chunky black X cursor. No terminals or other windows open and I'm
> unable to work out how the heck to start an app. When I `sudo /etc/
> init.d/xdm restart` via SSH I again get the login window and this
> time the Session Menu says "fail safe" in the "text box" - I now have
> extra load session & delete session buttons but they don't do
> anything useful.
>
> I have followed the pointers in the "startx no longer gives gnome"
> thread <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/185659> but
> no joy. If, instead of starting `/etc/init.d/xdm`, I log in at the
> framebuffer prompt and type ` XSESSION="Xsession" startx` I again get
> the "Session Menu" window and the X cursor, but this time a black
> background behind that widow and a _black_ screen when I log in.
>
> There's no .xsession stuff in my home directory - I even deleted
> ~/.*to be paranoid-sure of this. Whups, there goes my bash history!!
> None of the log files show anything useful or relevant - I've even
> run `watch -n 0.3 ls -lt /var/log/` and the only ones that change are
> xdm.log, Xorg.0.log and the weird binary file wtmp. They all show X
> starting swimingly but not the sesssion stuff. I don't know what else
> to say.
>
> What's weird is that I _did_ see the expected terminal windows
> opening yesterday, but I can't reproduce them now. The behaviour
> seemed to be correct when I ran `startx` but not when I added xdm to
> the default runlevel & started it that way. But now it doesn't work
> at all.
>
> I've attached the actual /etc/X11/Sessions/Xsession file, but I'm
> sure this is unchanged - I'm sure it's exactly as shipped by Gentoo
> by default. I've thought about replacing that with a simple `echo
> "hello world`", but I'm not sure how to do that within the X11
> environment.
>
> Many thanks indeed for the time you've taken reading this, and for
> your patience and in advance for any help or suggestions you can offer,
>
> Stroller.

say, how many times have you sent this mail? I count seven so far.

One mail would have been enough!
-- 
gentoo-user@g.o mailing list