xdm failing to start on FBSD 10.0 r2340030 erratically

[David Wolfskill]

On Sun, Apr 08, 2012 at 01:29:36PM +0200, O. Hartmann wrote:
> I loose hair ...
> Since yesterady's "make world" (last make world: the day before
> yesterday), getting FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT/amd64 to r234000 or so, the X11
> system on all of our FreeBSD 10.0-CUR/amd64 boxes start rejecting the
> start of xdm display manager. xdm is started from /etc/ttys on ttyv7.
> This worked before flawless.
> 
> At this very moment, I do have X11 started via xdm - but this is a
> erratic and non-reproduceable process!
> 
> This morning, I update world and kernel to r234030. I recompiled many
> ports via "portmaster -f xorg xdm", hoping the new kernel/world could
> affect the ports, but this isn't.
> 
> Starting Xorg X11 server works fine. xdm fails. The log in
> /var/log/xdm.log looks like:
> 
> Build Date: 07 April 2012  04:51:08PM
> ...
> 
> 
> I feel a bit helpless around here since I can not get close to what is
> happening. The erratic behaviour of starting xdm is frightening.
> Starting xdm via /etc/ttys doesn't work at all, but sometimes, with a
> bit luck, xdm starts when started from the console.
> ....

I am not having trouble starting xdm via /etc/ttys; my environment is
known to differ from yours in the following ways:

* My ports (save for x11/nvidia-driver and misc/compat8x) are built
  under stable/8.  (I track stable/8, stable/9, and head on a daily
  basis, and have a common /usr/local among them.  I also update
  any installed ports that have updates available daily.)

* I am running FreeBSD/i386, vs. FreeBSD/amd64.

* My last 2 updates were r233994 (yesterday) and r234031 (today).

* I have a mildly hacked-up startup script for xdm.  I doubt this is an
  issue -- I've been doing this since 2006/03/05 19:04:03 (according to
  the RCS log), though I have modified the script a few times
  since its inception.  But the point here is that I'm not directly
  invoking the xdm executable from /etc/ttys.

* I don't know that this is different, but it may well be:  my xorg.conf
  includes a stanza:

  Section "ServerFlags"
      Option         "AutoAddDevices" "False"
  EndSection

  because my experiences with hald & dbus were so unpleasant.  I don't
  use them; I don't even try to start them.

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil.

See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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