Re: XDM... source level

[Erik Walthinsen <omega@omegacs.net>]

> This is what scares me most.  You must take incredible care because
> there are times when the user really dose want to kill XDM.  i.e. If he
> is doing a compile or playing a large console game on a slow machine
> ( i.e. every CPU cicle counts ).
The attempt to XDM running in this case only applies when recovery is 
needed.  I agree, there must be a way to drop to text-only, if for nothing 
else than playing a non-X game.

> How about a button on the XDM login screen that says simply "go to
> command line with no X support ?"
There are really two or three reasons and ways to do this.  If you just 
want to play a non-X game, you can spawn it on a separate VT and just 
switch to that.  If you want to drop to text-mode on the console for 
hacking reasons, you can either comment out the local server from Xservers 
and -HUP XDM (messy), or just switch VT's.

Most likely, on a properly running system, the only reasons a user would 
have for not using X are transient and simple, so I think we can (for now) 
ignore the possibility of needing to kill XDM while remaining in runlevel 
5.  If they don't want X[DM], init 3 would be the solution.

There may be other reasons to kill XDM, and if those come up we can deal 
with them, but for now we should prob concentrate on the simple case.

> How cheap, and where ( I don't see them advertised in the PC/Windows
> centric locations I generaly look ) ? ... If they are below $ 500 I may
> be able to sell some :)
I got a 19" B&W X terminal from work for $20.  Lots of companies are 
getting rid of old hardware, X terminals included, and they're usually 
quite cheap.  Personally, I want to figure out how to get in on these 
firesales, but then again I don't really have the time.


     Erik Walthinsen <omega@seul.org> - SEUL Project system architect
        __
       /  \                SEUL: Simple End-User Linux -
      |    | M E G A            Creating a Linux distribution
      _\  /_                         for the home or office user