Arch Linux

misc

Member

From: Bavaria, Germany

Registered: 2010-03-22

Posts: 115

[SOLVED] agetty's output at boot garbled by daemons' messages

Instead of having the terminal cleared after the final daemon's message and then agetty nicely printing /etc/issue and prompting for login, the clear occurs seemingly random between one daemon's message and another's, which results in a garbled display of the output of agetty and whatever daemons remained to start.

Please let me know if there's a solution, files to check, possible workarounds etc. The issue doesn't cause any functional impariment, of course, but it's quite ugly and annoying.

Notes:

* The clear (vim :r !clear) at the beginning of /etc/issue is set properly.
* Adding a clear after rc.multi starts the daemons doesn't work, as it clears agetty's output as well.
* Adding a clear at the end of the last daemon's /etc/rc.d script, as suggested somewhere on the web, doesn't work either.
* Most of the daemons are started in the background:

DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng dbus !hal !network @cpufreq !netfs @alsa @wicd @skvm !preload !dhcpcd @ifplugd @pdnsd !bluetooth @avahi-daemon @mpd @samba @smbnetfs !tuntap !sensors @laptop-mode !gdm @crond

* /etc/inittab hasn't been pampered with:

#
# /etc/inittab
#

#  Runlevels:
#    0    Halt
#    1(S)    Single-user
#    2    Not used
#    3    Multi-user
#    4    Not used
#    5    X11
#    6    Reboot

## Only one of the following two lines can be uncommented!
# Boot to console
id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
#id:5:initdefault:

rc::sysinit:/etc/rc.sysinit
rs:S1:once:/etc/rc.single
rm:2345:once:/etc/rc.multi
rh:06:once:/etc/rc.shutdown
su:S:once:/sbin/sulogin -p

# -8 options fixes umlauts problem on login
c1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty1 linux
c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty2 linux
c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty3 linux
#c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty4 linux
#c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty5 linux
#c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty6 linux

# Hypervisor Virtual Console for Xen and KVM
#h0:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 hvc0 linux

ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

# Example lines for starting a login manager

#x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/kdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/slim >& /dev/null

# End of file

edit: Well, apparently the only way is to try out as many different permutations of the daemon array positions as it takes to have this behavior vanish (or so I hope). If it's of any future use, here's mine now:

DAEMONS=(dbus @syslog-ng @alsa @cpufreq @wicd @skvm @ifplugd @pdnsd @avahi-daemon @mpd @samba @smbnetfs @laptop-mode @crond !bluetooth !tuntap !sensors !preload !dhcpcd !netfs !gdm !hfsc_shaper !hal !network)

I also switched the snd-hda-intel option of my alsa configuration from a specific mode (acer-aspire-8930g) to the generic "auto", but I doubt that had anything to do with the issue.

Last edited by misc (2011-02-25 02:03:16)

skunktrader

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 1,543

Re: [SOLVED] agetty's output at boot garbled by daemons' messages

The "clear" is a result of the video driver initializing KMS.

If you are using Intel video driver, this may help
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … Setting.29

If you are using nouveau, this may help
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/No … arly_start

Last edited by skunktrader (2010-11-08 21:06:10)

misc

Member

From: Bavaria, Germany

Registered: 2010-03-22

Posts: 115

Re: [SOLVED] agetty's output at boot garbled by daemons' messages

I'm using nvidia's binary driver, so that doesn't work. Thanks still.