2011/12/18 Colin Guthrie <[email protected]>: > 'Twas brillig, and Maarten Vanraes at 18/12/11 11:46 did gyre and gimble: >> Op zondag 18 december 2011 11:54:17 schreef Colin Guthrie: >>> 'Twas brillig, and Anssi Hannula at 18/12/11 10:32 did gyre and gimble: >>>> For the record, attached are three alternative [1] untested >>>> proof-of-concept patches that make kernel start on vt7. >>> >>> Personally I'm not a fan of sticking to vt7. As I said in an earlier >>> thread, if the primary use case of the machine is graphical, then why >>> start at 7? It's an arbitrary choice that fitted in with other uses when >>> it was first introduced, but these days it's pretty backwards when >>> considered on it's own. The only reason to preserve it is out of habit >>> and I think that this is (generally speaking) the worst possible premise >>> to base decisions on. I mean, if we want to let people use fast user >>> switching easily they first have to learn first about vt switch command >>> ctrl+alt+Fn. Then they have to learn that the first login is on 7 and >>> the subsequent ones are on 8 etc. This doesn't make sense... >>> >>> What *should* happen is that the first one is 1.. the second one is 2 etc. >>> >>> When I'm in gnome, and I switch to tty2 for the first time, rather than >>> getty appearing wouldn't it be better if the gdm prompt appeared for a >>> second graphical login? >>> >>> I'm not suggesting that we ditch text logins completely, but I'm just >>> saying that we should try and make things generally smoother if they >>> user has already opted for a graphical system. >>> >>> Switching to e.g. 7 or 8 should maybe default to providing a text login >>> and gdm should maybe present a "give me a text login" option in which >>> case that X server quits and getty replaces it. >>> >>> Anything unused should timeout and quit (e.g. a getty on tty2 unused >>> should exit and wait and be re-activated as appropriate later. >>> >>> All these things are possible (maybe not without upstream support, but I >>> can ask Ray about the general plans here from a gdm perspective). >>> >>> >>> Just for reference this is how the seat extender USB things work. Little >>> thin clients that you plug into USB that give you a keyboard mouse and >>> display. When you plug it in for the first time, it registers a new seat >>> and then gives you a gdm login prompt. I don't think mutli user should >>> be much different from multi-seat in this regard. >>> >>>> BTW, I know fedora uses vt1 for X, but what about other distros, e.g. >>>> Ubuntu/Debian? >>> >>> I don't think they default to it but plenty people try to change it to >>> that according to Google. >>> >>> >>> Col >> >> >> theoretically, i'd be in favor of on-demand vt allocation, be it graphical or >> textbased. >> >> i'd be ok with a session starting when going to other vt (default session, be >> it a dm or a textbased login.) > > Yup, this is generally what I'd propose. > >> however, the dm should allow to fall back to >> textbased, but there we run into a problem: >> >> what if X is failing, you can't go back to text-login, so that's a nono >> >> perhaps we could document that we'd preallocate F12 or something for text- >> based emergency, but then noone would know... > > Yeah, as above, I was suggesting that e.g. 7&8 were always text logins. > >> I donno, if we don't have textbased by default, then surely vt1 has to be >> forcably text-based... > >> new X sessions are started from the old session, so i vote that CTRL+ALT+FX >> spawns a text-based login. > > They can be, but I'd vote that this should change. e.g. if you have a > setup where you "typically" have two users logged in and session 1 is > always "Dad" and session 2 is always "Mum", if Mum knows that she does > ctl+alt+F2 to switch to her session when she is logged in, however in > order to login, Dad has to already be logged in and either select the > Switch User option, or do so from a logged screen. > > But say there has been a power cut and the machine is rebooted, Dad > hasn't logged in but Mum wants to use "her" session on VT2 because > that's what they are both used to. > > If she presses ctl+alt+f2 when at the login prompt, all she sees is a > text login, this will be confusing to her. However if it spawns a new > graphical login, then she'll appreciate she's not logged in yet and log in. > > So stand by my original suggestion that if you are running a graphical > target, Switching to a TTY to get a "login prompt" should show you a > graphical login prompt. If however you are only in the text level > (multi-user.target) then you should be given text logins. >
What happens in this new scheme if graphical server fails - this is happening more often than you think - this is not clear to me yet. If the x server crashes and the default is starting a DM and graphical login, what will happen then? What happens if a user wants to boot into run level 3? He will get a text prompt because neither x nor any DM has started yet - where does he land, on VT7? What happens when using SysReq keys? About displaying a graphical login - when I press Ctrl-Alt-Fn I do this to go to a text console, not to yet another x screen and I expect a prompt, not yet another graphical login. -- wobo
