You can ALWAYS modify ${X11}/lib/xdm/{Give,Take}Console (or is it xreset?)
to chown/chmod the necessary devices (/etc/fbtab or whatever).  The fix
is simple -- a little judicious use of awk and eval, and you're set.

#define AUTHOR "apm@vipunen.hut.fi (Antti Miettinen)"

/*
 * >	I didn't think the XServers would *work* when not suid root; in fact,
 * >a quick chmod on my machine reveals that XF86_S3 can't open a virtual console
 * >w/o being suid.
 * 
 * I suppose any X server needs access to the framebuffer, keyboard and
 * mouse. I've solved these things so that the device nodes needed for X
 * server are owned by group xyz and the Xserver binary is sgid xyz. This
 * is not very good solution. What I would like, is login or xdm to chown
 * the device nodes to the user who logs in.
 * 
 * >	I assume this isn't i386 specific, because I'd hate to think that
 * >some of these X functions could be performed by just any userid.
 * 
 * It's the same problem on all archs but IMHO the worst solution is to
 * run Xserver suid root. I've said this before, but here goes again..
 * Xservers tend to be huge programs and huge programs tend to have bugs
 * and buggy suid root programs can crash the system. Who knows, maybe
 * the mysterious crashes I've been having for a long time were caused by
 * my xlock which was suid root.
 * 
 * 
 */

#undef AUTHOR	/* "apm@vipunen.hut.fi (Antti Miettinen)" */




				--*greywolf;
--
"Well, it's _two_ drummers, and we're not marching,   *. .* *. .*  *. .*
we're dancing, but that's the general idea, yes."       v     v      v
	-- unknown.                                   <) )_ /) )_  /) )-'
						       >>_   /_\,   /_-'