*BSD News Article 53615


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Q: which FAQ or how to set up X to run automatically?
Date: 29 Oct 1995 17:17:26 +0100
Organization: Private FreeBSD site, Dresden.
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <4709em$js@uriah.heep.sax.de>
References: <DGp96t.FA0@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> <imburaqk7x.fsf@crater.cs.uidaho.edu> <DGuvL7.Dw2@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
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Carsten Whimster <bcrwhims@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

>Ok, I'm going to try this. Yesterday I put xdm in my etc/rc.local
>file, but using this method, Ctrl-Alt-BkSpc didn't kill xdm like I was
>told it should, so I'll try this instead.

Aaaah.  Now i begin to understand!

Of course, you cannot kill *xdm* with Ctrl-Alt-BkSpc.  This will only
kill the X server, and xdm is eager to start a new one immediately!

Why don't you leave the X server alone, and simply go back to a text
screen with Ctrl-Alt-F<n>?  Then revert to the X server with Alt-F4
(for the default setup with 4 vty's and getty's on ttyv0 ... ttyv2).

Should you really have any reason to terminate xdm's handling for one
screen, don't run it from /etc/ttys but still from rc.local, and
terminate the session with Ctrl-R (from the xdm login screen).  If
you've been starting it as a daemon, xdm will remain listening in the
background however.  (It's actually still listening for other XDMCP
requests, so somebody could continue to log in from an X terminal.)

In case you want to reactivate the background daemon, send it a SIGHUP
later.

Running it from /etc/ttys doesn't give you an easy way to terminate
xdm's attempts to launch yet another X server.  The -nodaemon stops
xdm from daemonizing itself, but it will be restarted by init(8) each
time you're terminating it with Ctrl-R.
-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)