Login Menu

TuxToaster · 02-22-2005, 03:16 PM

I have been messing around with the Debian Sarge Installer, i 1st installed it with just the Desktop environment "net installer, 500mb or so dl" then i reinstalled with just the base xserver and kde "100mb or so dl".
Everything works but the login menu on the 2nd install is very basic, only the option to login and thats it unlike on the 1st install.
Any way i can get this to get the login menu to the same as the 1st install or some other login menu with the more options ie session etc.

mjrich · 02-22-2005, 03:19 PM

Depending on your preferences, either

Code:

apt-get update
apt-get install kdm             -or
apt-get install gdm

Cheers,

mj

TuxToaster · 02-22-2005, 04:23 PM

Thanks.

Fice · 04-29-2005, 09:53 PM

Ive got kind of the same problem except my solution does not seem to be so simple. Im running Arch 0.7 on the 2.6.11 kernel using KDE and I know im supposed to use pacman instead of apt-get but still Ive already looked on all the repositories of pacman with a querry and there is no such thing as kdm or gdm and every time I try to install it by pacman -S kdm or pacman -Su kdm or any other way it just says kdm not found. So then how can I install kdm? Am I just stuck with the console login and then doing the startx thing myself?

Fice

mjrich · 05-02-2005, 05:01 PM

Gdm has been compiled for Arch -- see http://www.archlinux.org/packages.php?id=3140. Kdm may already have been installed as part of kdebase (what happens if you attempt to run kdm from the command line ?), otherwise you'll probably have to install it from source (see http://www.kde.org/download and the Konstruct tool).

Cheers,

mj

microsoft/linux · 05-03-2005, 09:28 PM

ok, not really related to getting a login menu, but how do I get gdm to match the widget(or theme or whatever it's called) that gnome uses?

mjrich · 05-03-2005, 11:47 PM

Use gdmconfig (or gdmsetup, as root).

Cheers,

mj

Fice · 05-08-2005, 11:02 PM

ok turns out you where right kdm was already installed or at least I think, although nothing happens when i put kdm on the konsole it doesnt say not found nor anything. From what I know i can configure it through kconfig or something like that as root and then going to the login menu but no matter how much i change there I always boot to the console login. And as far as I know i have the kdm set up in the bootup script or if not still shouldnt it boot to xdm instead?

thanks for all your help

mjrich · 05-08-2005, 11:14 PM

You could have a look at which runlevel kdm is expected to be started from (grep -r kdm /etc/rc*.d), and then see if that is before or after your default runlevel (in /etc/inittab). You could also reconfigure kdm, a la

Code:

dpkg-reconfigure kdm

Cheers,

mj

Fice · 05-08-2005, 11:37 PM

ok whenever I run

Code:

grep -r kdm /etc/rc*.d

I get

Code:

/etc/rc.d/kdm:PID=`pidof -o %PPID /opt/kde/bin/kdm`
/etc/rc.d/kdm:    [ -z "$PID" ] && /opt/kde/bin/kdm &>/dev/null
/etc/rc.d/kdm:      echo $PID > /var/run/kdm.pid
/etc/rc.d/kdm:      add_daemon kdm
/etc/rc.d/kdm:      rm_daemon kdm

Im not sure what im supposed to get but I cant find any run level there.

The other code for the reconfigure thing didnt work, it told me the comand did not exist.

I also noticed that during bootup theres an error sometimes it comes out several times saying

INIT cannot execute "/usr/X11R6/bin/kdm"

I suppose this has something to do with it?

mjrich · 05-09-2005, 12:12 AM

Quote:

INIT cannot execute "/usr/X11R6/bin/kdm"

I suppose this has something to do with it?

Quite possibly. If it's a bug in the init script for kdm, then you may want to run an update on your system to make sure you have all the current packages. Otherwise, you could check your startup scripts for that command above, and replace it with the correct location of kdm. On my system, it's at /usr/bin/kdm (running whereis kdm should tell you).

I'm not sure how your rc.d directories are setup as - obviously not as the old style /etc/rc0.d -- through to /etc/rc6.d, so you may want to have a poke around your /etc directory and then re-run a modified version of the above grep command. Though my hunch is that you've hit the nail on the head with the error above - so as soon as you can change that path to the correct one, it'll probably run normally.

Good luck !

Cheers,

mj

mjrich · 05-09-2005, 12:24 AM

Actually, if you want to be excessively lazy, then you could always just check that /usr/X11R6/bin/kdm doesn't indeed exist, and then just make a symlink from there to the real kdm binary. Something along the lines of

Code:

ln -s /usr/bin/kdm /usr/X11R6/bin/kdm

should do it.

Cheers,

mj

Fice · 05-09-2005, 12:53 AM

Ok it seems we are getting there but not quite yet.
I did the link thing and now when I do the whereis kdm command it shows it works and tell me its in /usr/X11R6/bin/kdm and /opt/kde/bin/kdm where it was originally and this helped eliminate the error at bootup but still I get the console log in and another error that goes
"INIT Id "x" respawining too fast: disabled for 5min"

as far as my rc.d directories there seems to be only one of them located at /etc/rc.d with a bunch of stuff inside of it but there is no rc0.d or rc6.d

where would the INIT script that is constantly running up with errors be?

mjrich · 05-09-2005, 03:08 PM

Right, after a bit of reading it appears that Arch follows the *BSD style of boot scripts, rather than the usual rc0.d, rc1.d, ... rc6.d runlevel directories. So, that explains why you couldn't find the symlink with the grep command above.

The "respawning too fast" error could be due to any number of things (simply says that some process in the current runlevel is either missing or misconfigured -- see http://www.unixguide.net/linux/faq/09.24.shtml). Try booting into single user mode and see what happens - if you get kdm coming up normally, then check the differences between /etc/rc.single and /etc/rc.multi.

The other likely option is that you've recently attempted to install or remove something crucial to the current runlevel - if so, then you may want to try reinstalling it, at least for the moment.

Cheers,

mj

Fice · 05-19-2005, 03:14 AM

Hi sorry for the late post, I was in exams and wasnt really able to continue with my linux config. I solved the INIT: x respawning too fast error thanks to your link. I basically just nanoed into the inittab script and commented the line wich had kdm on it which was the one with trouble or so I found out later as now everything seems to be working fine; Im guessing it was directed wrongly to where kdm was or something Im not sure, I tried correcting it but didnt work so I just decided to comment it out. Kdm is now working since whenever I run kdm on console a login screen appears, before it basically did nothing. It still isnt coming up at bootup but Im going for the lazy way of solving it, adding the kdm command to the boot up script hehehe. Except I forgot where the bootup script is otherwise I would have tested it already but Im sure I will find it in a while.

Thanks for all your help.