[Mageia-dev] ANN: X11 now starts on tty1

Wed Dec 28 21:23:23 CET 2011

'Twas brillig, and P. Christeas at 20/12/11 07:56 did gyre and gimble:
+> On Saturday 17 December 2011, Colin Guthrie wrote:
+>> Back in the day, text logins were the norm, graphical logins came later.
+>> Text logins got ttys 1-7... These days they are pretty much useless for
+>> 99.5% of the use cases ...
+> 
+> I'd like to question that.
+> You see, machines still have 'init 3' (or did Fedora remove that, too?),
+
+Yup they remove it! Well, technically not, it's just not called "3" any
+more, it's called "multi-user.target" which is altogether more sensible.
+
+> there 
+> is still people wanting a Linux box (not desktop) not to have X. And that's 
+> way more than 0.5% .
+
+OK, the text you quoted is somewhat taken out of context. I never
+suggested removing text logins or not catering for server installs sans
+X (I use this setup myself). All I'm suggesting is that the first, say
+six TTYs are reserved for the current target's preferred login system.
+If you are on multi-user.target (aka runlevel 3) then you 1-6 offer you
+a text login as before. However if you are on graphical target then 1-6
+should offer you graphical logins instead.
+
+> Or, X may be broken sometimes.
+
+And I proposed that some higher numbers would be reserved for text-only
+logins - i.e. tty's 8-9 or something.
+
+> So, standardization of tty1=text makes sense, is not just an old habit.
+
+No, it's an old habit so you are defaulting to it as a solution when
+there are a myriad of others out there that (IMO) fit better.
+
+> Because, you are *always* expecting to find a working tty console on a Linux 
+> box[1], while X only launches a bit later, if it can[2]. Putting the one that 
+> works in the default place is more reasonable, see?
+
+I also thing it's reasonable that *something* pops up when X tries to
+start and fails. Whether this is a getty that allows you to log in or
+something even more friendly, doesn't really matter.
+
+> Really, why don't you patch the kernel to start at tty7? you could call that 
+> "progress", too.
+
+IMO, no it's not progress. It's keeping the same conventions for the
+sake of it rather than evaluating what makes sense with a fresh pair of
+eyes. The ONLY valid reason I can see for keeping graphics on tty7 is
+simply that's that's how it was done before. Now this does carry some
+weight I agree, but when evaluating what makes Linux hard to use for
+newbies and novices, we sometimes have to through out "quirks" that we
+are used to for the sake of a more logical approach.
+
+> Some things in Linux could improve, but some don't need change. Unix legacy is 
+> what makes Linux great[3]
+
+Citation needed. And your footnote is complete nonsense. Time has not
+proven it right at all. It's proven that it works, but that doesn't mean
+it's optimal. I mean time has proven that a bubble sort works. Does that
+mean we should not look to e.g. quick sort algorithms etc? Of course not.
+
+>, IMHO. Part of that legacy (the "old school") is to 
+> have failsafe defaults, is to start with a minimal design and then build the 
+> extras on top.
+
+And you are welcome to your view, but you have to admit it's clouded. I
+try very hard to discard any clouded views I have due to habits. I mean
+a regular newbie user doesn't consider "graphical UI" to be an "extra
+that you built on top"... it's the core to them. Anything less and it's
+not an operating system!
+
+> That's why Unix principles (or "hangovers") have survived so 
+> many decades, while other OSs have gone with the wind[4]. 
+
+A lot of unixisms are good. But some are bad and just didn't have any
+viable alternative until people pull their finger out and design and
+develop some stuff to replace it! You cannot say "unix is good" as a
+broad statement. You have to each component on it's own merits.
+
+Col
+
+-- 
+
+Colin Guthrie
+colin(at)mageia.org
+http://colin.guthr.ie/
+
+Day Job:
+  Tribalogic Limited http://www.tribalogic.net/
+Open Source:
+  Mageia Contributor http://www.mageia.org/
+  PulseAudio Hacker http://www.pulseaudio.org/
+  Trac Hacker http://trac.edgewall.org/
+