ubuntu-x-swat team mailing list archive

[David Benjamin <dnas.dnas@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am aware of this; I know the details of this problem, having
discovered it independently in the days I spent figuring out why Ubuntu
failed to boot on my laptop into either X or single-user mode.

If kdm was used, then this bug also occurred in single-user mode because
the configuration check occurs before the single-user check and returned
a non-zero exit status. The failsafe-x init script lacks a sanity check
to not run when booting into single-user mode, like kdm and gdm do have.
While it is true that this bug cannot currently be triggered, this
package is *failsafe* X. If care cannot be taken to make sure it doesn't
kill the system due to driver problems, extreme care should at least be
taken to ensure it does not break existing, more fail-proof, failsafe
methods.

If the gdm script ever accidentally returns a non-zero exit status from
a future change for whatever reason, this bug will happen again and we
will attempt to launch failsafe-x on single-user mode. This is
especially unfortunate; presumably if I'm booting into recovery mode, it
means that failsafe X already failed and launching it again only risks
further disabling the user's machine. It would be good engineering to,
for instance, add a check in failsafe-x's script. If not by listening
for the starting-dm event, at least do the same /proc/cmdline check that
gdm does.

Perhaps change the start on rule to

start on (stopped gdm EXIT_STATUS=[!0] and starting-dm)

But I don't know upstart particularly well, and I cannot test this on my
machine; any attempt to bring up failsafe X results in killing it.

-- 
Since failsafe-x was enabled in karmic it starts if gdm is disabled and kdm is used. (low graphics mode error)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/491483
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