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#1 2005-04-16 08:18:03

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

cannot open a terminal in X

Hi all,

I'm a long time gentoo user, but yesterday I got over an old laptop and decided to run arch on it. I'm really surprised that this distro isn't more popular than it is. So far, it seems exactly as what I'm looking for. As a matter of fact, a few weeks ago I was thinking how I would like the perfect distro to be, and so far arch seems to be a copy of those thoughts  :shock: !

However, I have an initial (and very annoying) problem. Under X, I cannot open a terminal as a user. I've tried both xterm and aterm. I'm sure it's a permission problem but I don't even know where the relevant things are logged, so I can't check it out. Has anyone had a similar experience? (I'm on udev, for the record).

Thanks.

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#2 2005-04-16 08:28:41

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

OK; I managed to find out that it's a pty-problem, but I thought udev took care of that itself, without the need of an entry in fstab. Do I need an entry in fstab (if yes, how should it look like?)?

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#3 2005-04-16 08:42:36

filoktetes
Member
From: Skien, Norway
Registered: 2003-12-29
Posts: 287

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

The fstab should be correct from the installation. So if you haven't changed it, the first line should be:

# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0

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#4 2005-04-16 09:58:39

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

yep, that seemed to have been it. I must have removed that line during install, thinking that it was only necessary for devfs. Thanks a lot smile

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#5 2005-04-16 10:15:06

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

I have another X related problem now (perhaps I shouldn't post these things under newbie corner :?); this is the output of glxinfo | grep render

libGL error: open DRM failed (Operation not permitted)
libGL error: reverting to (slow) indirect rendering
direct rendering: No
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect

If I log in as root first, and then as normal user I will not have this problem... any ideas?

Edit: OK; this just got even stranger. I noticed that what fixes it is not logging in as root and than as user. It simply suffices to log out and then in again. So first time I log in, I get those errors; second time I log in, everything seems alright...

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#6 2005-04-16 12:11:23

RedShift
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2004-07-16
Posts: 230

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

nightfrost wrote:

I have another X related problem now (perhaps I shouldn't post these things under newbie corner :?); this is the output of glxinfo | grep render

libGL error: open DRM failed (Operation not permitted)
libGL error: reverting to (slow) indirect rendering
direct rendering: No
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect

If I log in as root first, and then as normal user I will not have this problem... any ideas?

Edit: OK; this just got even stranger. I noticed that what fixes it is not logging in as root and than as user. It simply suffices to log out and then in again. So first time I log in, I get those errors; second time I log in, everything seems alright...

What video card do you have? Try uncommenting the last few lines of xorg.conf concerning DRI.


:?

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#7 2005-04-16 12:31:18

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

Thanks for the reply.

It's a r128-card, which has IMHO pretty bad support under linux. However, I'd like to have dri working (and indeed it does if I log out and then back in), and the xorg.conf file is one that I used under gentoo before. I can't help thinking it's a permission thing...

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#8 2005-04-16 14:45:08

i3839
Member
Registered: 2004-02-04
Posts: 1,185

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

I also use the r128 driver and xorg works for me. Do you have the following in your xorg config:

Section "DRI"
    Mode 0666
EndSection

I guess you have.

What about loading the r128 driver in rc.conf?

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#9 2005-04-16 15:15:18

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

DRI-section is OK, and module is loaded.

It's rather strange really. What could possibly change after log out and log in again?

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#10 2005-04-16 15:39:29

i3839
Member
Registered: 2004-02-04
Posts: 1,185

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

It could buy extra time. Other than that, not sure...

How do you start X? Just with 'startx'?

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#11 2005-04-17 09:28:26

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

through GDM...

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#12 2005-04-17 11:23:28

i3839
Member
Registered: 2004-02-04
Posts: 1,185

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

Do you start GDM before or after you start hotplug?

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#13 2005-04-17 13:14:36

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

Hmm.. I think I start it right after hotplug and I run it in background mode in order to have the login screen pop up while the last services are being initialized... but I'll take a look at the settings and will post back if I've set gdm to run before hotplug..

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#14 2005-04-17 15:41:50

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

Nah, gdm definitely runs after hotplug and by the time the GDM screen is up and running, everything has been initialized... so that's no it. Thanks anyway.

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#15 2005-04-17 16:32:45

i3839
Member
Registered: 2004-02-04
Posts: 1,185

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

I'm out of suggestions. I'd try to locate the problem by trying out startx instead of gdm, and see if it makes any difference, gives useful feedback, or whatever.

Do you start gdm from /etc/inittab or as a daemon in rc.conf, or both?

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#16 2005-04-17 16:58:16

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: cannot open a terminal in X

I'll try to start it X with startx. GDM starts as a service (declared in rc.conf).

Thanks alot for your suggestions so far. It's not a too big a deal though if I have to log out and then in again - that old laptop of mine seems to be allergic to all Operating Systems anyway (there's always some kinda small problem like this one, no matter the OS).

I just have to say once again that arch *really* is nice. I'd prophesize it will seriously grow over the next few years.

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