In article <20050302112524.GB7519@endersgame.net>,
Sean Davis  <dive-nb@endersgame.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Revision 1.2 of xinit.c changed this behaviour: now I can enter the
>> password and X starts fine. But do I really need to enter my password
>> twice (once for login and once for X)?
>
>I've been wondering the same thing, watching this thread... X has never
>required that one authenticate (other than logging in) before, why now?
>

The behavior is programmable. You can change /etc/pam.d/xserver
and change the auth line to be:

auth	required	pam_permit.so

My guess is that the X people wanted to have more fine grained control
than file modes on who has permission to start the X server.

christos