[Pkg-xfce-devel] [LightDM] 0.9.3 on oneiric: login then framebuffer screen with "x" cross-heir pointer

[Gilbert Sullivan]

On 08/29/2011 01:40 PM, Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:
> On lun., 2011-08-29 at 19:33 +0200, Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:
>> [this is completely off-topic on lightdm list please switch to
>> pkg-xfce-devel so we can fix the Xfce/Debian part]
>
> And another (private) reply, sorry for that, the pkg-xfce list address
> was wrong, this is the correct one.

My sincere apologies. I was dimly thinking that the lightdm folks would 
be interested in this behavior having been seen with Xfce in two 
different distros -- since it doesn't seem to affect other DMs. But 
you're quite right. I should have been on the Xfce lists. I'm sorry 
about that.

I'll subscribe to pkg-xfce-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org. I hope I won't 
miss any replies from you. I'd be grateful if you'd CC me until I'm sure 
I'm getting mail from that list.

>>
>> On lun., 2011-08-29 at 10:18 -0400, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>>> On 08/29/2011 09:21 AM, Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:
>>>> [this is off-topic on lightdm list, sorry]
>>>> On lun., 2011-08-29 at 09:10 -0400, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> My users didn't want to start the session manually from the terminal, so
>>>>> I've removed LightDM and gone back to XDM. (Also, in Debian testing
>>>>> there was an XDM / task-xfce-desktop interdependency that was causing
>>>>> some problems with package management (aptitude) after I removed XDM.
>>>>> Going back to XDM seems to have eliminated those issues as well.
>>>>
>>>> You can safely remove task-xfce-desktop, it's just a metapackage which
>>>> pulls the Xfce task. Next upload will switch xdm to lightdm.
>>>
>>> I did remove task-xfce-desktop on those systems. It was after I did that
>>> that those systems stopped loading Xfce.
>>
>> Check that nothing else has been removed by aptitude.

Just XDM.

>>>
>>> And, even though I updated aptitude, it didn't switch from xdm to
>>> lightdm. When I re-installed task-xfce-desktop, xdm was pulled as a
>>> dependency.
>>
>> Yes, as I said, the update has been done in tasksel repository but it
>> will take time before it reach testing and images are starting to be
>> made with this change.
>>>
>>> I wonder if there's a problem just with these specific installations
>>> that is peculiar to the images I used for the installation -- an i386
>>> and an AMD64 image from about 08/17. Is something like that possible.
>>>
>>> With the problems I've seen with these two particular systems, I'm
>>> tempted to re-install them both from scratch.
>>
>> Not sure it'll do anything.
>>>
>>> Am I to take it that, if I do that now (netinst), the xfce desktop will
>>> pull LightDM as the default DM?
>>
>> No, not yet.
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I am NOT seeing the problem with LightDM starting the Xfce session on
>>>>> systems that were installed back when GDM (version 2) was the default DM
>>>>> for Xfce. But all of the systems on which XDM was made a dependency of
>>>>> Xfce have had to be reverted to XDM.
>>>>
>>>> This is weird, but without debug info (especially logs) from lightdm,
>>>> I'm not sure one can do anything.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, I understand. Unfortunately, I didn't think to collect the logs,
>>> and I wound up purging the packages (and the information I need to
>>> correct the problem) on both of the systems that were behaving this
>>> before I thought about it. It was the weekend, and everyone was tired
>>> and cranky.
>>
>> Ok, now, please do:
>>
>> * install task-xfce-desktop
>> * install lightdm
>> * switch default greeter to lightdm (dpkg-reconfigure lightdm should
>> propose you that)
>>
>> When LightDM starts, select “Xfce session” in the dropdown menu.
>>
>> Does it work?

Yes, so far. I just let aptitude set LightDM as the default DM when I 
installed it, so didn't use dpkg-reconfigure.

What happened last time with both desktops was that they worked fine for 
a while, and then they started going flakey on me. It seemed that the 
longer and more a system was used, the more likely it was to fail in 
this manner -- with an apparently corrupted user profile.

I didn't mention that I had tried removing the /.cache and /.config 
directories under the adversely affected user account. That always 
allowed the affected accounts to log in again. But they eventually 
failed again in the same manner -- with the X cursor showing up, and now 
panel or desktop environment (other than the background image).

When I switched to TTY1 I noticed a long string of "CO respawning..." 
messages on the screen. I just decided to re-install XDM and remove 
LightDM because we just wanted to use our systems. I'm sorry that I 
wasn't in a very scientific mood at the time, or I would have tried to 
get some decent information. I only replied to the message on the 
LightDM list because I thought it was peculiar that someone on Xubuntu 
and someone on Debian had seen the same issue. I shouldn't have tried to 
participate in a thread without having done some work up front.

I'll watch this system to see if anything untoward occurs again.

BTW, is it necessary to select the Xfce Session as opposed to just 
accepting the Default X Session when logging in? Wouldn't (shouldn't) 
they result in the same desktop?

Thank you for your consideration,
Gilbert