Arch Linux

xinkpad

Member

Registered: 2021-12-28

Posts: 2

Unidentified (-) and slow tty switching upon bootup

Hi all,

I just did a fresh reinstall onto a thinkpad x220, and am experiencing a weird problem that I need help debugging. I'm running dwm without a display manager, just calling startx via .bash_profile after login. When I boot the machine, the login screen shows the Linux kernel version, but the tty is not shown and instead is indicated by a dash. The output looks like this:

Arch Linux 5.15.11-arch2-1 (-)
xinkpad login: _

When I change to a different tty via ALT-SHIFT-Fx, the system will hang for about 5 seconds and then switch to the next tty, with the same kernel information and dash (-) for the tty identifier. When I login to dwm normally and then kill dwm, again the system hangs for about 5 or 6 seconds before presenting the login interface with the dash for the ttyl identifier.

I tried changing to the LTS kernal to see if that may help, but no change. I can also see from the logged output in journalctl gettty@ttyX.service what looks like normal activity, but I am not experienced enough to know where to go next.

One more thing that may be helpful: the output of the command tty shows one result:

/dev/pts/1

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Last edited by xinkpad (2021-12-28 05:15:46)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,341

Re: Unidentified (-) and slow tty switching upon bootup

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/73163

xinkpad

Member

Registered: 2021-12-28

Posts: 2

Re: Unidentified (-) and slow tty switching upon bootup

So these really are two separate issues, and there are open github issues to track them.

github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/21889 - delay when starting new TTY

github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/21919 - tty device name shwon incorrectly on login prompt.

For the delay issue, a workaround has been identified by Joan Bruguera. Here's his post from 21889 explaining the workaround, which I've confirmed works on my own system:

//Note the delay when launching the TTY, is the 5s timeout from Type=idle units:

//    Type=
//
//        Behavior of idle is very similar to simple; [...] Note that this type is useful only to improve console output, it is not useful as a general unit ordering tool, and the effect of this service type is subject to a 5s timeout, after which the service program is invoked anyway.
//
//Additionally, an easy way to work around the delay without patching systemd is to change the service type of getty to simple, i.e. do systemctl edit getty@.service and type:
//
//[Service]
//Type=simple

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,813

Website

Re: Unidentified (-) and slow tty switching upon bootup

The delay problem is fixed for version 250-4 of the systemd package, which is now available from the [testing] repositories.

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Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

dogknowsnx

Member

Registered: 2021-04-12

Posts: 652

Re: Unidentified (-) and slow tty switching upon bootup

Name resolving has been fixed upstream, as well

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RI - Rest your Eyes and Self

"We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion" - Maynard James Keenan

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 13,389

Re: Unidentified (-) and slow tty switching upon bootup

the fix was added to archlinux util-linux package, ttys are identifiable again.

https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-p … 5eb9b7203a

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

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Try clean chroot manager by graysky