X11 Xserver startup problem on a Raspberry PI

[Robert Heller]

At  Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:

> 
> At  Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > At Tue, 27 Jun 2017 08:55:35 +1000 Peter Hutterer <peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 09:20:32AM -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
> > > > I have a Raspberry Pi (Model 2 B) running a fairly recent version of Raspbian 
> > > > (2017-04-10-raspbian-jessie.zip).  I have it start up to the console login, 
> > > > since most of the time I just ssh into it from another machine (either my 
> > > > CentOS laptop or desktop).  I just tied to login into its console (using my TV 
> > > > as a monitor) and using the startx command t fire up the GUI, but it is 
> > > > failing.  I *think* it is having some sort of problem with the input device I 
> > > > am using: a combo keyboard / trackball:
> > > 
> > > there are no error messages in the log regarding libinput, it all comes up
> > > normally. So whatever the issue is, I don't think that's it. the logind
> > > messages looked fine too, so that shouldn't be an issue either.
> > > 
> > > fwiw, you could easily verify it with sudo libinput-debug-events, if that
> > > handles the events correctly then the driver will too and you can mostly
> > > rule out libinput issues.
> > 
> > Well, libinput-debug-events does not seem to be installed...  What package 
> > would it be in?  dpkg-query -l \*libinput\* yields:
> > 
> > Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
> > | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
> > |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
> > ||/ Name                        Version      Architecture Description
> > +++-===========================-============-============-===================================================================
> > ii  libinput-bin                1.5.0-1      armhf        input device management and event handling library - udev quirks
> > ii  libinput10:armhf            1.5.0-1      armhf        input device management and event handling library - shared library
> > ii  xserver-xorg-input-libinput 0.20.0-1     armhf        X.Org X server -- libinput input driver
> > 
> > > 
> > > "it is failing" is a bit generic, what exactly doesn't work?
> > 
> > The XServer does not start -- I type startx, and after a brief startup blather
> > and a brief screen blanking, it lands back at the shell prompt. The log file
> > is all I have. Yes, it appears that XServer sees everything, but for some
> > reason just exits after it has finished probing... No "obvious" (to me) reason
> > (I have seen Xservers die for various reasons, like bad video timing rates on
> > unsupported video chips, or totally missing mice and/or keyboards -- mostly in
> > the "bad old days" where one had to set things up properly in
> > /etc/X11/xorg.conf. I believe these days, one does not bother with
> > hand-crafter conf files -- the XServer figures itself out "on the fly". (Or
> > not as the case might be...)
> 
> OK, another datapoint:
> 
> *I* don't use the "pi" account on my pis -- I create an account "heller" so 
> make things consistent with my other Linux boxes (an x86_64 home built desktop 
> and a x86_64 Lenovo Thinkpad laptop).
> 
> When I log into the 'Pi as "pi", startx works.  It does not work when I log in 
> as heller.  This is *weird* (at least from this long time Linux user).
> 

OK, problem solved: it was a bad .xsession file.  It has been so long since I 
needed to troubleshoot a .xsession that I had forgotten to check there.  

> > 
> > > 
> > > Cheers,
> > >    Peter
> > > 
> > >                                 
> > 
> 

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