[SOLVED] OpenBSD 6.5 Xorg Xfce4 Start Failure

rsmereka · 05-01-2019, 09:28 AM

Hi All,

Issue: When I start the graphical desktop using 'startxfce4' (under a normal user account), Xorg fails with:

Quote:

xf86OpenWScons: cannot open /dev/ttyC4 (Permission denied)

Starting from the 'root' account works fine.

Background: Lenovo x61s, OpenBSD 6.5 i386, I am manually starting the graphical desktop from the terminal as I prefer to start and stop the GUI instead of using a logon manager, xenodm is not started at boot. Xorg settings and Xfce settings (at the moment) are OOTB. I have this exact setup working properly on a Dell 131L laptop with an AMD (Turion) chipset under OpenBSD 6.4 i386.

What I have done so far: the regular user belongs to the group 'wheel', /dev/ttyC4 is owned by user 'root', group 'wheel', as per the Xorg log file, I have searched wiki.x.org including the FAQ, KnowledgeBase and typical error messages, I also checked the group list in '/etc/groups' for any group that the regular user could be missing and other than the group '_X11' which I think is being used by Xorg itself while running. I did not find any other group of use, I have also searched here for a possible answer.

Since this works perfectly under the 'root' user, it seems that it is a permission issue but all the permissions check out. There are also lots of internet posts that discuss running Xorg by a regular user which is not a member of the 'wheel' group.

Have any ideas?
TIA

jggimi · 05-01-2019, 09:55 AM

Starting with OpenBSD 6.5 (quoting from the Upgrade Guide) ....

Quote:

The Xorg binary is no longer installed setuid, so startx(1) can no longer be used by non-root users. The xenodm(1) display manager has to be used instead.

To set it up:

# rcctl enable xenodm
# rcctl start xenodm

If you wish to customize X you need to create an executable .xsession file.

hitest · 05-01-2019, 01:42 PM

I used to use startx. Now I use xenodm and quite like it. Here's my .xsession file for XFCE.

Code:

/usr/local/bin/startxfce4 --with-ck-launch

rsmereka · 05-01-2019, 01:47 PM

Apologies,

I did not check the Upgrade Guide.

I tried it and while, it does work, this represents a problem for me since once xenodm is launched, it takes over and it is no longer possible to slip back into full screen terminal mode. One can only logout from the Xfce session which brings back the xenodm login page. There is no way, that I found, to exit xenodm back to the terminal.

jggimi · 05-01-2019, 09:19 PM

Using Alt-Ctrl-F1 through Alt-Ctrl-F4 will take you to individual virtual consoles, outside of X. Alt-Ctrl-F1 maps to the system console. Alt-Ctrl-F5 will return you to your X session.

To add additional virtual consoles, see http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq7.html