Re: [gdm-list] gdmflexiserver questions

["Reid Rivenburgh" <reidr pobox com>]

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 12:51 AM, simon.zheng <Simon Zheng sun com> wrote:
> Reid Rivenburgh wrote:
>> 1. Is the above usage correct?  It should be doing what I want?
>>
>
> You probably don't have to input "-s".
>
> Looking into code, option "-s" actually do nothing in GDM 2.22.
> It's a legacy option. In old GDM, this option will directly start
> a new login screen without popping up a user chooser, which is a
> separate dialog different from login screen. In GDM 2.22.0, login
> screen has contained user chooser, "-s" is useless I think.
>
> Also, there're GUI ways to switch user or back to login screen.
>
> - user switcher applet on gnome-panel. You can add this applet
> manually and try.

I had been using that applet when I first installed F9.  I noticed it
shows my name in the panel and requires me to choose "Other..." from
the menu.  I think that's equivalent to running "gdmflexiserver", so
to keep it as small and simple as possible, I just made an application
launcher that when clicked runs "gdmflexiserver".  (As yuo say, I
guess the -s is no longer needed.)  I just want sort of a virtual
"logout" button; I don't need to switch to other users.  I hope my
understanding is right!

>> 2. I noticed my machine was slowly using up memory.  It seems that
>> everytime I run "gdmflexiserver -s", I get a whole new X session
>> running.  When I log back in as me, it doesn't go away, so they're
>> building up over time.  At the moment, I have six metacity processes
>> running (and I run fvwm!), which is how I've been monitoring this.
>> I've noticed that when I run "gdmflexiserver -s", it almost
>> immediately shows the gdm login screen, but then I see a new X server
>> starting, and after a few seconds, I again see the gdm login.  I
>> thought at first that it was just killing and restarting the X server
>> for some reason, but now I suspect it's creating a new one each time.
>> Does anyone know why this might be happening?
>>
>
> What you are seeing might be switch Xserver rather than killing
> and restarting Xserver.
>
> In fact, login screen is running like a real gnome-session,
> called greeter-session. When starting gdmflexiserver, it will
> detect whether or not greeter-session exists. If yes, just
> switch to there. Otherwise, create a new greeter-session and
> then switch.

That's what seems to be broken for me right now.  It looks like it's
showing the existing greeter-session, but then it starts a new one.
After testing that a few times this morning, now I get this in my
xterm when trying to run gdmflexiserver:

% gdmflexiserver

** (gdmflexiserver:30519): WARNING **: Unable to determine session:
Unable to lookup session information for process '30519'
** (gdmflexiserver:30519): DEBUG: seat id is not set; can't switch sessions

And I get a dialog that says "Could not identify the current session."
 So now it's not just starting new, extraneous X servers, it's
completely broken.  I don't know what might have broken it.  If you
know of any log file info or anything else that could help diagnose
this, let me know.  I haven't manually killed any processes, and I
still have 8 metacity processes running that should all be associated
with gdm sessions.

>> 3. Assuming I can get things running properly, I've been a little
>> confused about what scripts run when.  I was hoping the
>> gdm/Init/Default and related scripts get run every time I run the
>> gdmflexiserver command.  It doesn't seem like they do, though.  Is
>> that correct?  Basically, after running gdmflexiserver, I want to turn
>> off the monitor after sleeping for a short time.  I get the feeling
>> that DPMS doesn't work if you simply change VT to a display that
>> thinks the monitor is already off (i.e. past the idle time) unless you
>> hit a key or move the mouse to reset the idle counter.
>>
>
> You can try with GPM display management. That would be easier
> than writing a script. What you need to do is just set from
> gnome-power-preferences.
>
> Also, GPM can be even run on login screen. When you stay on
> login screen for a long time, monitor will sleep after a
> specified idleness time.

Yes, that would be ideal.  I even added a default DPMS line to my
xorg.conf.  But what I'm afraid is happening is as I explained above
(which could be wrong): If I switch from the VT with my X session to
an existing gdm-greeter session using gdmflexiserver, it seems like
the gdm X server thinks it's been idle for a long period of time and
as a result doesn't ever turn off the monitor.  If I hit a key or move
the mouse, that resets the idle counter and it will.  If a new X
server were to be started, then that wouldn't be a possibility, of
course, but it would also take several seconds to start up and show
the login.  (Not that that's how gdm/gdmflexiserver works, just
stating it.)

>> 4. When I try to run a gdmflexiserver command, I get this:
>>
>> % gdmflexiserver --command VERSION
>>
>> ** (gdmflexiserver:15043): WARNING **: No longer supported
>>
>> Is that supposed to happen?
>>
>
> You could try with
> $gdmflexiserver --version

Well, that's a workaround for that one!  But I've seen references to
other commands you can pass in, too.  I seem to be collecting gdm
sessions, so I was wondering if I could use a gdm command to list them
and possibly delete extras.  No matter what I do, though, I get the
"no longer supported" message.

Thanks,
reid