My situation: ever since i started using GNOME with GDM, i've been annoyed that the GDM startup interfered with my view of the tail end of the bootup messages. Since my last "apt-get upgrade", things have gotten worse; GDM starts up on VC 2, and promptly forgets how to accept keyboard input.
Since X historically tries to appear on "the VC after the last one" (i.e., if you have getty on VC 1-6, X appears on VC7), this symptom makes me think that GDM is trying to spawn before init has quite figured out what to do with the VCs. I want to try and deal with this by delaying the GDM startup to the end of the init sequence, which i gather i can do by increasing the number on the SNNgdm scripts in /etc/rcN.d ; is there much prospect of me shooting myself in the foot or otherwise spectacularly screwing up by doing this? -- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
