On Sun, Jul 13, 2003 at 12:35:42PM -0400, James K. Lowden wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jul 2003 14:13:20 -0500, Richard Rauch <rkr@olib.org> wrote:
> > 
> > This, combined with experience from running X via "startx" (which I
> > think of as the "normal" way to run X) suggests to me what is happening:
 [...]
> Let's suppose you're right, Richard, and there's a race condition between
 [...]

Of course, what I suggested was a workaround, not a solution.

At the time that I offered up that thought, I don't remember seeing any
analysis of the problem.  Since I don't use gdm, or any other display manager,
I suggested a thought went on my merry way.

Another workaround someone suggested was to have gdm tell X which
virtual terminal to use when it started the X server.  (Looked at that
way, you might say that it's "okay" that when you don't specify a screen,
it is runtime-dependant which screen you get.  In that view, gdm doesn't
have a bug and the proper thing is just to say where you want X, if you care.)


 [...]
> Rather than a simple delay-and-hope, surely it would be better to block
> against the contended resource.  Do you know anything about that?  

Delay-and-hope isn't a solution, much less a good one, I agree.

Since I'm not entirely sure that there is a bug here, I'm not sure that
blocking is appropriate.  (On the other hand, perhaps NetBSD should be able
to reliably reserve its virtual terminals for getty at boot time withOUT
relying on 3rd party software to "get it right"?)


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/