Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Micha]

I don't think that it will work as I need both actual display output
(like I said, not a directly human viewable output, but still) and
hardware accelerated OpenGL.

Still, thanks for the idea.

On 03/03/2012 00:30, Michael Vasiliev wrote:
> Have you considered using xvfb and vnc to it, or you absolutely have to
> do it on a real display?
> 
> On 02/27/2012 09:05 PM, Micha wrote:
>>
>> For a project I'm working on at the moment, I need to be able to log
>> in remotely to a machine (via ssh) and start a blank x-server. That
>> is, to just initialize the display, with not cursor or window manager,
>> to allow for creating a single full screen window for display.
>> I seem to recall that just running X as a user used to do it, up to
>> the no cursor part, leaving an empty (hetched) screen and running the
>> content of .xsession or something like that.
>> Things on modern systems seems to have changed enough with all the
>> xsession / gdm / gnome etc. that it doesn't seem to happen properly.
>>
>> Any idea how I can achieve that on a modern system (red hat enterprise
>> desktop 6 in this case).
>>
>> thanks
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Linux-il mailing list
>> Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
>> http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
> 


___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Michael Vasiliev]

Have you considered using xvfb and vnc to it, or you absolutely have to 
do it on a real display?


On 02/27/2012 09:05 PM, Micha wrote:


For a project I'm working on at the moment, I need to be able to log 
in remotely to a machine (via ssh) and start a blank x-server. That 
is, to just initialize the display, with not cursor or window manager, 
to allow for creating a single full screen window for display.
I seem to recall that just running X as a user used to do it, up to 
the no cursor part, leaving an empty (hetched) screen and running the 
content of .xsession or something like that.
Things on modern systems seems to have changed enough with all the 
xsession / gdm / gnome etc. that it doesn't seem to happen properly.


Any idea how I can achieve that on a modern system (red hat enterprise 
desktop 6 in this case).


thanks



___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il


___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Amos Shapira]

2012/2/28 Micha 

>  For a project I'm working on at the moment, I need to be able to log in
> remotely to a machine (via ssh) and start a blank x-server. That is, to
> just initialize the display, with not cursor or window manager, to allow
> for creating a single full screen window for display.
> I seem to recall that just running X as a user used to do it, up to the no
> cursor part, leaving an empty (hetched) screen and running the content of
> .xsession or something like that.
> Things on modern systems seems to have changed enough with all the
> xsession / gdm / gnome etc. that it doesn't seem to happen properly.
>
I'm aware of the long thread this post has started, but just wanted to
point out that I have just stumbled upon the following page (while looking
for instructions for adding hamster-time-tracker applet to the Debian
Wheezy GNOME 3.2 desktop, still searching) which points to
/etc/gdm3/Xsession which seems to allow you to put whatever you want to run
in the session:

http://library.gnome.org/admin/gdm/stable/configuration.html.en#xsessionscript

HTH,

--Amos

-- 
 [image: View my profile on LinkedIn]

___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Micha]

On 28/02/12 09:51, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012, Micha wrote about "How do I start a blank x-server?":
>> For a project I'm working on at the moment, I need to be able to
>>   log in remotely to a machine (via ssh) and start a blank x-server.
>> ...
>>   I seem to recall that just running X as a user used to do it, up
>>   to the no cursor part, leaving an empty (hetched) screen and
>>   running the content of .xsession or something like that.
>>   Things on modern systems seems to have changed enough with all the
>>   xsession / gdm / gnome etc. that it doesn't seem to happen
>>   properly.
>> Any idea how I can achieve that on a modern system (red hat
>>   enterprise desktop 6 in this case).
> 
> 
> I'm not sure about RHEL6, but Fedora, which is probably similar,
> unfortunately lost the ability to run the user's ~/.xsession instead of
> those fancy (and bloated) GNOME/KDE. It happened when Fedora 9 was
> released, in 2008.
> 
> Luckily, there's a way to bring the good-old-behavior of following a
> ~/.xsession (if it exists). You can enable it by doing:
> 
>   yum install xorg-x11-xinit-session
> 
> Then, in the graphical login screen, you get a third option besides KDE
> and Gnome, which is "user config" (or something like that) - and if you
> choose that, your ~/.xsession is used.
> If you only switch to this "user config" once in the login screen, it
> will be the default next time, so from there on you will just log in
> normally, and always get your intended configuration.
> 
> But although this answers your question, looking at the rest of your
> discussion, I'm not sure this is what you actually wanted to do. Perhaps
> what you wanted is simply to run "vncserver" and get a blank X server which
> you can view with "vncviewer".

Ok, I'll try to explain again what I need.

I have a machine with one card connected to two outputs. These are
processed by hardware to create some output which are not human
distinguishable, but as far as the computer is concerned they are
regular displays. I connect to that machine via ssh, and I need to open
an OpenGL window on these two outputs to "display" the required data. To
open these windows I need to create an X server (as I need OpenGL with
acceleration, so a frame buffer device will not do). For testing I'm
connecting screen to see that the right output is produced, but they
won't be there after debugging.

Running X as root takes me most of the way there, but it works for now
on my personal laptop and I haven't managed to get it to run on the said
machine (there are complaints about no access to /dev/nvidia1)

> 


___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Nadav Har'El]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012, Micha wrote about "How do I start a blank x-server?":
> For a project I'm working on at the moment, I need to be able to
>   log in remotely to a machine (via ssh) and start a blank x-server.
>...
>   I seem to recall that just running X as a user used to do it, up
>   to the no cursor part, leaving an empty (hetched) screen and
>   running the content of .xsession or something like that.
>   Things on modern systems seems to have changed enough with all the
>   xsession / gdm / gnome etc. that it doesn't seem to happen
>   properly.
> Any idea how I can achieve that on a modern system (red hat
>   enterprise desktop 6 in this case).


I'm not sure about RHEL6, but Fedora, which is probably similar,
unfortunately lost the ability to run the user's ~/.xsession instead of
those fancy (and bloated) GNOME/KDE. It happened when Fedora 9 was
released, in 2008.

Luckily, there's a way to bring the good-old-behavior of following a
~/.xsession (if it exists). You can enable it by doing:

yum install xorg-x11-xinit-session

Then, in the graphical login screen, you get a third option besides KDE
and Gnome, which is "user config" (or something like that) - and if you
choose that, your ~/.xsession is used.
If you only switch to this "user config" once in the login screen, it
will be the default next time, so from there on you will just log in
normally, and always get your intended configuration.

But although this answers your question, looking at the rest of your
discussion, I'm not sure this is what you actually wanted to do. Perhaps
what you wanted is simply to run "vncserver" and get a blank X server which
you can view with "vncviewer".

-- 
Nadav Har'El|   Tuesday, Feb 28 2012, 
n...@math.technion.ac.il |-
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |A thing is not necessarily true because a
http://nadav.harel.org.il   |man dies for it. - Oscar Wilde

___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Micha]

  
  
It's headless as far as a human is concerned as there is no display
for user interaction. The two dvi is connected to a machine that
does something with the output, but it's nothing a human can discern
before being processed. We're thinking of putting in another
graphics card, but I'm not sure if we have a free slot.

On 27/02/12 22:52, Shachar Shemesh wrote:

  
  
  On 02/27/2012 10:21 PM, Micha wrote:
  


I would have preferred to be able to do this as a user as the
machine is supposed to run headless as a production machine
dedicated for this application, I guess that I can start the
whole application as a daemon though.
  
  If it's headless, who's going to see the application?
  
  If no one, consider running Xvfb instead.
  
  Shachar
  -- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com




  


___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Shachar Shemesh]

On 02/27/2012 10:21 PM, Micha wrote:
> I would have preferred to be able to do this as a user as the machine
> is supposed to run headless as a production machine dedicated for this
> application, I guess that I can start the whole application as a
> daemon though.
If it's headless, who's going to see the application?

If no one, consider running Xvfb instead.

Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com

___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Micha]

  
  
Thanks, I got X to start this way (as root). It did take a very long
time (almost half a minute) until the black screen came up. For some
reason though the keyboard and mouse don't respond and I have an X
for the mouse in the middle of the screen that won't move. It also
means that I can't switch back to console from the current machine.
I also tried running gedit from remote ssh to make sure that things
work, it ran, but most of the interface was black. glxgears did work
fine. Not sure if the resolution is correct though. 
I would have preferred to be able to do this as a user as the
machine is supposed to run headless as a production machine
dedicated for this application, I guess that I can start the whole
application as a daemon though.

BTW, I've been using linux for something like 14 years now, so it
could have been a long time ago. It's definitely been long since I
tried. It was at the days before gnome-session and such when you ran
startx and had to setup the display manager and everything else
yourself.

On 27/02/12 21:27, Shachar Shemesh wrote:

  
  
  On 02/27/2012 09:05 PM, Micha wrote:
  


For a project I'm working on at the moment, I need to be able
  to log in remotely to a machine (via ssh) and start a blank
  x-server. That is, to just initialize the display, with not
  cursor or window manager, to allow for creating a single full
  screen window for display.
  I seem to recall that just running X as a user used to do it,
  up to the no cursor part, leaving an empty (hetched) screen
  and running the content of .xsession or something like that.

  
  As root, run "X". If there is a server already running on the
  machine, "X :1" would do it.
  
  I don't know what you meant to run as a user. If it was "startx",
  that does not work, and has not work for some time now. In fact, I
  doubt it ever started an empty X server.
  
  Bonus: X.org changed their default so that the default background
  is now black, meaning no flicker until your window opens.
  
  Shachar
  
  -- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com




  


___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Re: How do I start a blank x-server?

[Shachar Shemesh]

On 02/27/2012 09:05 PM, Micha wrote:
>
> For a project I'm working on at the moment, I need to be able to log
> in remotely to a machine (via ssh) and start a blank x-server. That
> is, to just initialize the display, with not cursor or window manager,
> to allow for creating a single full screen window for display.
> I seem to recall that just running X as a user used to do it, up to
> the no cursor part, leaving an empty (hetched) screen and running the
> content of .xsession or something like that.
>
As root, run "X". If there is a server already running on the machine,
"X :1" would do it.

I don't know what you meant to run as a user. If it was "startx", that
does not work, and has not work for some time now. In fact, I doubt it
ever started an empty X server.

Bonus: X.org changed their default so that the default background is now
black, meaning no flicker until your window opens.

Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com

___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

How do I start a blank x-server?

[Micha]

  
  
For a project I'm working on at the moment, I need to be able to
  log in remotely to a machine (via ssh) and start a blank x-server.
  That is, to just initialize the display, with not cursor or window
  manager, to allow for creating a single full screen window for
  display.
  I seem to recall that just running X as a user used to do it, up
  to the no cursor part, leaving an empty (hetched) screen and
  running the content of .xsession or something like that.
  Things on modern systems seems to have changed enough with all the
  xsession / gdm / gnome etc. that it doesn't seem to happen
  properly.
Any idea how I can achieve that on a modern system (red hat
  enterprise desktop 6 in this case).
thanks

  


___
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il