CentOS - Apr 2015 - Problems with getty and X on runlevel switch [Was: Re: The future of centos]

On 2015-04-04, Bill Maltby (C4B)
<centos4bill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 2015-04-04 at 11:12 +0100, Nux! wrote:
>> 100% with Digimer here.  <snip>
>
>> All this energy should be put into contributing towards to the
>> project, testing, helping out community.
>
> Well, I used to agree. But when a bug report filed in December goes
> untouched entering April, which I don't recall happening prior to RH
> subsuming the project, it takes away impetus to ever file one again
> from lowly end users like me I think.
>
> http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=7972
Thanks for drawing my attention to that bug. I encountered it the other
day after switching from runlevel 5 to 3 (and back again) on a CentOS
6.6 machine.

The purpose of the runlevel switch was to restart gdm. Is there a better
way?

-- 

Liam

On Wed, 2015-04-08 at 10:36 +0000, Liam O'Toole
wrote:
> On 2015-04-04, Bill Maltby (C4B)
> <centos4bill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, 2015-04-04 at 11:12 +0100, Nux! wrote:
> >> 100% with Digimer here.  <snip>
> >
> >> All this energy should be put into contributing towards to the
> >> project, testing, helping out community.
> >
> > Well, I used to agree. But when a bug report filed in December goes
> > untouched entering April, which I don't recall happening prior to
RH
> > subsuming the project, it takes away impetus to ever file one again
> > from lowly end users like me I think.
> >
> > http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=7972
> 
> Thanks for drawing my attention to that bug. I encountered it the other
> day after switching from runlevel 5 to 3 (and back again) on a CentOS
> 6.6 machine.
> 
> The purpose of the runlevel switch was to restart gdm. Is there a better
> way?
ISTR an alt-backspace to restart X (been a _long_ time)? Of course with
the apparent conflicts in underlying script/config (tries to spawn
gettys on tty1-6 expecting X to start on tty7 but X starts on tty1) I
don't know if this would work any better.

My work around is a dummy user logged in on the first session (tty1) and
use System->Log-out->Switch User from the panel to run real users on
second and subsequent sessions for other users (all me). The subsequent
sessions will start on tty7.

Nice to know I'm not the only one that tries to use system facilities
the way they were intended to work and has problems. Maybe if you touch
the bug report so they know I'm not the only one the folks will look and
elevate to RH bug just like they used to do? I was surprised that
"crash" didn't get any attention.

Bill

The easy way to restart gdm is when you are on the login screen itself or the 
desktop simply press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. This works for Upstart in CentOS 6.x 
but will not work for CentOS 7.x which uses Systemd. The service command does 
not work for gdm. However, logging out of the desktop will restart gdm. It works
for the graphical login exactly like the gettys in a TTY environment.

On 04/08/2015 06:36 AM, Liam O'Toole wrote:
> On 2015-04-04, Bill Maltby (C4B)
> <centos4bill at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Sat, 2015-04-04 at 11:12 +0100, Nux! wrote:
>>> 100% with Digimer here.  <snip>
>>> All this energy should be put into contributing towards to the
>>> project, testing, helping out community.
>> Well, I used to agree. But when a bug report filed in December goes
>> untouched entering April, which I don't recall happening prior to
RH
>> subsuming the project, it takes away impetus to ever file one again
>> from lowly end users like me I think.
>>
>> http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=7972
> Thanks for drawing my attention to that bug. I encountered it the other
> day after switching from runlevel 5 to 3 (and back again) on a CentOS
> 6.6 machine.
>
> The purpose of the runlevel switch was to restart gdm. Is there a better
> way?
>

-- 


*********************************************************
David P. Both, RHCE
Millennium Technology Consulting LLC
Raleigh, NC, USA
919-389-8678

dboth at millennium-technology.com

www.millennium-technology.com
www.databook.bz - Home of the DataBook for Linux
DataBook is a Registered Trademark of David Both
*********************************************************
This communication may be unlawfully collected and stored by the National
Security Agency (NSA) in secret. The parties to this email do not consent to the
retrieving or storing of this communication and any related metadata, as well as
printing, copying, re-transmitting, disseminating, or otherwise using it. If you
believe you have received this communication in error, please delete it
immediately.

Am 08.04.2015 um 13:08 schrieb David Both <dboth at
millennium-technology.com>:
> The easy way to restart gdm is when you are on the login screen itself or
the desktop simply press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. This works for Upstart in CentOS
6.x but will not work for CentOS 7.x which uses Systemd. The service command
does not work for gdm. However, logging out of the desktop will restart gdm. It
works for the graphical login exactly like the gettys in a TTY environment.

I remember that this "shortcut" is an X11 server feature 
(it kills the process!) that can be en/disabled.

--
LF

On 2015-04-08, David Both
<dboth at millennium-technology.com>
wrote:
> The easy way to restart gdm is when you are on the login screen itself
> or the desktop simply press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. This works for Upstart
> in CentOS 6.x but will not work for CentOS 7.x which uses Systemd. The
> service command does not work for gdm. However, logging out of the
> desktop will restart gdm. It works for the graphical login exactly
> like the gettys in a TTY environment.
Thanks for the suggestion.

Logging out and keying ctrl-alt-backspace both restart X, certainly, but
I'm not so sure about gdm. I'm not at a CentOS 6 machine right now so I
can't confirm one way or the other.
>
> On 04/08/2015 06:36 AM, Liam O'Toole wrote:
>> On 2015-04-04, Bill Maltby (C4B)
>> <centos4bill at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> On Sat, 2015-04-04 at 11:12 +0100, Nux! wrote:
>>>> 100% with Digimer here.  <snip> All this energy should be
put into
>>>> contributing towards to the project, testing, helping out
>>>> community.
>>> Well, I used to agree. But when a bug report filed in December goes
>>> untouched entering April, which I don't recall happening prior
to RH
>>> subsuming the project, it takes away impetus to ever file one again
>>> from lowly end users like me I think.
>>>
>>> http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=7972
>> Thanks for drawing my attention to that bug. I encountered it the
>> other day after switching from runlevel 5 to 3 (and back again) on a
>> CentOS 6.6 machine.
>>
>> The purpose of the runlevel switch was to restart gdm. Is there a
>> better way?
>>
>
>
-- 

Liam

On 2015-04-08, Bill Maltby (C4B)
<centos4bill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2015-04-08 at 10:36 +0000, Liam O'Toole wrote:
>> On 2015-04-04, Bill Maltby (C4B)
>> <centos4bill at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Sat, 2015-04-04 at 11:12 +0100, Nux! wrote:
>> >> 100% with Digimer here.  <snip>
>> >
>> >> All this energy should be put into contributing towards to the
>> >> project, testing, helping out community.
>> >
>> > Well, I used to agree. But when a bug report filed in December
goes
>> > untouched entering April, which I don't recall happening prior
to
>> > RH subsuming the project, it takes away impetus to ever file one
>> > again from lowly end users like me I think.
>> >
>> > http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=7972
>> 
>> Thanks for drawing my attention to that bug. I encountered it the
>> other day after switching from runlevel 5 to 3 (and back again) on a
>> CentOS 6.6 machine.
---SNIP--
> Nice to know I'm not the only one that tries to use system facilities
> the way they were intended to work and has problems. Maybe if you
> touch the bug report so they know I'm not the only one the folks will
> look and elevate to RH bug just like they used to do? I was surprised
> that "crash" didn't get any attention.
>
> Bill
Good idea. I'll go and add to the bug report.

-- 

Liam

On Wed, Apr 08, 2015 at 10:36:05AM +0000, Liam O'Toole
wrote:
> Thanks for drawing my attention to that bug. I encountered it the other
> day after switching from runlevel 5 to 3 (and back again) on a CentOS
> 6.6 machine.
> 
> The purpose of the runlevel switch was to restart gdm. Is there a better
> way?
Since CentOS 6 uses Upstart as its init system, and GDM is run from an
Upstart service (and not a SysV init script), you can use the upstart
tools to restart GDM.  It's actually run from the 'prefdm' service
(because it could also run kdm or xdm).

# initctl restart prefdm
prefdm start/running, process 29141

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>

On 2015-04-08, Jonathan Billings
<billings at negate.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 08, 2015 at 10:36:05AM +0000, Liam O'Toole wrote:
>> Thanks for drawing my attention to that bug. I encountered it the
>> other day after switching from runlevel 5 to 3 (and back again) on a
>> CentOS 6.6 machine.
>> 
>> The purpose of the runlevel switch was to restart gdm. Is there a
>> better way?
>
> Since CentOS 6 uses Upstart as its init system, and GDM is run from an
> Upstart service (and not a SysV init script), you can use the upstart
> tools to restart GDM.  It's actually run from the 'prefdm'
service
> (because it could also run kdm or xdm).
>
> # initctl restart prefdm prefdm start/running, process 29141
>
That did the trick. Thank you.

-- 

Liam

> Nice to know I'm not the only one that tries to use system facilities
> the way they were intended to work and has problems. Maybe if you touch
> the bug report so they know I'm not the only one the folks will look
and
> elevate to RH bug just like they used to do? I was surprised that
> "crash" didn't get any attention.
 While only vaguely related to this topic, does anyone else find that
 CentOS6 desktop stability is lacking? Or did we just never notice because
 no monitoring was in place pre-C6?

 I'm refering to abrtd which is sending out a susprising amount of
notifications
 about crashing desktop components like nautilus gthumb gnome-panel gvfsd-trash
 gvfsd-metadata gnome-settings-daemon, to name just a few.