[Pkg-xfce-devel] Debian testing installs with XDM as dependency of Xfce fail (eventually) when switched to LightDM

Gilbert Sullivan whirly.gig at hotmail.com
Mon Sep 12 13:07:36 UTC 2011


On 09/12/2011 07:46 AM, Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:
> On sam., 2011-09-10 at 22:13 -0400, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>> This time I did not remove LightDM. I simply installed XDM, rebooted,
>> and logged on so that I could send this message with the appropriate
>> attachments. I hope that they will be of some use, and I'll avoid
>> removing LightDM so that I can try any experiments / data gathering that
>> you might suggest.
>>
>> It did take rather longer this time to see this problem appear. The
>> previous installations of LightDM resulted in this problem appearing in
>> less than two days -- and that was three times in a row.
>>
> Ok, so indeed lightdm.log shows errors, but it doesn't really say
> where/how. Other logs aren't really helpful either, but could you tell
> us the timing information?

I'm afraid I'm not certain what you mean by "timing information", but 
I'll try to provide something useful.

The problem installation was created on a Lenovo T520i from an AMD64 
Debian testing businesscard daily build image burned to CD-R in 
Mid-August. XDM was the default desktop manager. LightDM became 
available in the official repositories (I only use Debian main and don't 
even use any non-free firmware.), and I decided to try it at your 
suggestion. I installed LightDM and removed XDM.

It worked -- for two days. Then the desktop locked up on me during a 
long session -- no response to keyboard or mouse. I had to force the 
system down by depressing the power button for 5 seconds. When I 
restarted the system, I was unable to log on to my primary user account 
-- the account I was using when the lockup occurred -- via LightDM. 
However, I was able to log on to a second user account. (I always create 
a "spare" account on my systems.)

I was able to log back on to the primary account by completely 
eliminating all contents of ~/.cache and ~/.config, but I ran into the 
same lockup issue again within a day or so.

I installed XDM, purged LightDM, and everything was fine.

Over the next couple of weeks I re-installed LightDM two more times. 
Each time I did this the system would work well for about two days, and 
then it would hard-lock on me again, and I would re-install XDM and 
purge LightDM.

Each time this happened I would find a huge .xsession-errors file (about 
500 K) but didn't follow up with any real research because I just wanted 
the system to work -- so kept reverting to XDM each time I had a 
failure. That's when I contacted you about the problem.

You made suggestions about my providing dpkg -l output and some logs. I 
provided some of the information you requested, but I had eradicated 
much of the data by purging LightDM from my system.

I finally had some time to try to make myself useful by getting the data 
you had requested, and I installed LightDM again on 09/02. I figured I'd 
use the system until it failed again and try to gather some useful 
diagnostic data to send you. But this time the system kept working 
properly for over a week!

In the interim I did find a way to stop the "co" respawning too fast 
errors that I had reported by editing /etc/inittab. (The installer 
apparently creates the line I commented out in that file when it detects 
that it is installing the OS on a hypervisor-capable system?) I don't 
know whether or not the elimination of those errors could have had 
anything to do with the system taking longer to get to the point of 
failure this time around.

So the system failed after a long session on 09/10. This time I gathered 
the dmesg, syslog, lightdm.log, and .xsession-errors data that I sent 
you most recently from tty1 before doing anything else to the system.

At some point I know that I sent you the dpkg -l output fora Panasonic 
CF-R3 sub-notebook which has not been failing to log on. The 
significance of this is that the Panasonic system was installed from the 
same daily build / version of Debian testing as the one used on the 
Lenovo T520i, but it is an i386 image instead of an AMD64 one.

After gathering the data you had requested, I have re-installed XDM, but 
I have left LightDM installed on the system in case you wish me to try 
some troubleshooting.

Best regards,
Gilbert



More information about the Pkg-xfce-devel mailing list