On Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 08:36:06AM +0200, Sander Marechal wrote: > > If something happens to X then a user can end up in the terminal. Even a > faulty application can trash X. > I don't believe that an application can trash X so badly that it won't start anymore. Misconfiguring X can certainly cause it not to start. But an application? That doesn't sound right. Now, I've had applications lock up X before. I usually ssh in from another machine and kill the rogue process or just restart X remotely. I'm not sure a newbie would have the wherwithal to do that, so he would probably just power cycle the machine (which is what I used to do before I knew any better). If apps are trashing X so bad that it won't restart, even after a power cycle, we have more serious issues.
> Maybe all what is needed is a small script and a warning. Suppose we > write a script called "desktop" or "start-desktop" that can start X, > Gnome, KDE or whatever is installed on the system - with safe values for > e.g. the X config. Sort of like Windows' rescue mode. > Umm, you mean like startx? Windows needs a rescue mode because they hosed their nice architecture and fused the GUI into the kernel. I'd be more interested in something that starts automatically when it detects that X is hosed. No need to tell the user to do it, just do it. > Then have a message appear when the terminal starts (not the virtual > terminals that you can start from your desktop, but the terminal you get > when X is dead) that reads something like: > > "If your desktop accidentally died, type "start-desktop" and hit the > return key or type "reboot" to restart your computer." > > If it can be made so that this message only appears when X is installed > but not running on the system, then even better. > Again, not necessary. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com
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