Re: SEUL: Stopping dreams

[The Thought Assassin <assassin@sleepless.south.networx.net.au>]

On Mon, 16 Feb 1998, Kevin Forge wrote:
> I just found a brain dead solution that is so simple it escaped us all.
> put 'startx' as the last line of '~/.bashrc'
This is not the point.
Starting X automatically is easy. Starting X before someone logs in is a
little harder, and this is what we were seeking, as far as i can tell.
We don't want to worry people with what looks like a commandline
interface, hence we are using XDM.

> All we need to do is take it a step farther and make a pretty 'GUI
> looking' Login screen and we achieve the "benefit" of XDM without
> any of the problems.
The "problems" mentioned were that we didn't have a fallback mode if we
started X automatically. I am not sure your proposal really helps here.
It gives us a fallback mode, but I think we were after an X-based fallback
mode.
I think I might have a solution to this, which might also help with
another issue that has not yet come up.
Firstly, if XDM is killed by the SEU, then we don't want it coming back up
automatically in case the screen mode is screwy. I would propose dropping
back to a screen which has a nice text-based message on it telling them to
hit enter to restart XDM. The good bit is: we can also tell them:
"If your screen setting are wrong, and you need to edit them, then switch
to another console, log in as root, and start X."
because X oughtn't be run as root from the first place, really (ok, there
are reasons why people do, but I'd rather we didn't for now) we should be
able to set root up to always start X in our fallback screenmode, and to
have a desktop consisting only of mode-editting devices, so that they can
fix things up :)
Only root is meant to be able to change the available settings of the X
server, anyway.
This is a rough sketch only, but I think it is a reasonably elegant
basis for a solution to our problem. What do you guys think?

> : "Through the firewall, out the router, down the T1, across the
> : backbone, bounced from satellite, Nothing but net."

This man has a very cool .sig

-Greg("Scrawling on walls, Meaningless words"
      -from _Burn_Like_Brilliant_Trash_(at_jackie's_funeral)_
      the Machines of Loving Graces' opinion of Usenet)