Arch Linux

jmandawg

Member

Registered: 2011-10-19

Posts: 60

Xvnc and xorg-xdm not working

I'm trying to setup Xvnc  to show the xdm login screen using xdmcp.  I have this working on my old arch box, but it's not working on the latest release.

Here are the steps, install xorg-xdm, and tightvnc

You need to have xorg installed.

Configure xdm to autostart by editing /etc/initab and setting runlevel to 5 as described in the wiki.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Display_Manager

Configure xdm to allow xdmcp as described here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xdmcp

You should now be able to reboot and the xdm login screen shows up.

If you open a terminal and type in:
Xvnc :1 -query localhost -fp /usr/share/fonts/misc 

It should start up an vncserver on :1

Then if you connect to it using vncviewer, you SHOULD get an xdm login screen.
For some reason it's not working, i just get an empty X session.

There are no errors to be found in any of the logs.

Like is said this works on my arch box i setup around 6 months ago.  The version of tightvnc is the same on both boxes.
The version of xdm is different:

current is: 1.1.11-1
old version is: 1.1.10-2

Any ideas?

Thanks,

-J

jmandawg

Member

Registered: 2011-10-19

Posts: 60

Re: Xvnc and xorg-xdm not working

So i replaced the /usr/bin/xdm on the new machine with the xdm on the other machine, and rebooted, and lo and behold it worked!
There must be something wrong with the new version of xdm.

edenyard

Member

From: East Anglia, UK

Registered: 2011-05-09

Posts: 23

Re: Xvnc and xorg-xdm not working

For what it's worth, I'm having the same problem with xdm on my Arch box after the latest upgrade. That upgrade installed xorg-xdm-1.1.11 (replacing xorg-xdm-1.1.10), after which remote X login stopped working from all other Linux boxes on my network. Local X login still worked, though.

So i replaced the /usr/bin/xdm on the new machine with the xdm on the other machine, and rebooted, and lo and behold it worked!
There must be something wrong with the new version of xdm.

I downgraded xorg-xdm-1.1.11 to the older xorg-xdm-1.1.10 and, like Jmandawg, I find that everything now works as it did.

I use a different method for remote login to the one which Jmandawg describes. My inittab sets run level 3. Xdm is started by a line in /etc/rc.local. On a remote machine, I type 'X -query <name-of-server>' at a console prompt. With xdm 1.1.11, all I get is a black screen. Sometimes I get the 'X' cursor in the middle of it; sometimes not.

It definitely seems to be a problem with the new version of xdm.

Cheers,
Gerald.