*BSD News Article 26820


Return to BSD News archive

Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!cnn.nas.nasa.gov!wilbur.nas.nasa.gov!tweten
From: tweten@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Dave Tweten)
Subject: Re: What is advantage of Virtual Console?
Message-ID: <CKM7w8.Hvo@nas.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov (News Administrator)
Nntp-Posting-Host: wilbur.nas.nasa.gov
Organization: NAS Systems Division, NASA Ames
References: <2if6nl$pus@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <CKIuou.7B5@nas.nasa.gov> <2im7n6$agv@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 21:04:55 GMT
Lines: 44

In article <2im7n6$agv@pdq.coe.montana.edu> nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes:
>In article <CKIuou.7B5@nas.nasa.gov>,
>Dave Tweten <tweten@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov> wrote:
>>In article <2if6nl$pus@pdq.coe.montana.edu> nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes:
>>>There are (known) problems with the way pccons and XFree86 interact.

>>I read the original article, opened an
>>xterm on my local machine, ran the commands and no bad things happened.
>
>Are you running an xconsole which keeps /dev/console open?  If so then
>that may be saving bad things from happening.

I do run xconsole as a matter of course, so maybe that explains why my
mileage is varying to the good.

Incidently, for reasons I've never bothered to investigate, xconsole
only succeeds when I run under Xdm.  If I shut off Xdm and start X with
xinit, xconsole flashes and disappears.  I've never bothered to
investigate it because I only use the xinit route while adjusting X's
graphics display magic numbers.  Xconsole works fine under Xdm, my
preferred way to use X.

>Also, what happens when you quit X and try to use job control on the
>tty?

Nothing surprising.  I just reconfigured to avoid using Xdm, rebooted,
ran xinit, su'ed, exited, exited X, started a long-winded find, hit ^Z
to put it into the background, and all worked well.

I should point out that su'ing seems to be important.  While doing this
experiment, I observed the "comotose console keyboard upon exiting X"
problem for the first time.  I've used xinit and come out of it
countless times in the past with no problem.  I do that when I adjust
XFree86's eight magic numbers which control graphic display.  It seems
I've been protected by the need to su to root before using emacs to
edit the magic numbers.  Perhaps the syslog message that results allows
me to avoid the bug.  Whatever the explanation, the effect seems firm. 
In my tests today, every time I su'ed before exiting X all went well;
every time I didn't, the console would hang at exit.
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Tweten						tweten@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center, M/S 258-5			     (415) 604-4416
Moffett Field, CA  94035-1000				FAX: (415) 604-4377