minimal graphical login "desktop manager"

[rgb]

Hi folks,

Have any TCEs been created yet for a very minimal graphical login?  I'm looking for a very minimal graphical desktop manager (even less than xdm...  kdm and gdm are overkill).  What I'm hoping for is likely something I'll have to hack together myself to be able to mount an encrypted home or restore from an encrypted backup depending on user credentials supplied.

Is anyone working on something like this?

[curaga]

There's no such extension yet.

Less than XDM, that would leave Slim, Entrance, and the DirectFB one whose name I can't remember. DirectFB needs supporting libs, Entrance needs the Enlightenment libs, so Slim is pretty much the only light choice.

[mikshaw]

Maybe something can be written to use Dialog...that would be pretty light.

[curaga]

SLiM was pretty easy to get going, and it seems nice so far. An extension posted.

[rgb]

Maybe something can be written to use Dialog...that would be pretty light.

I did contemplate cobbling something together with dialog...

[rgb]

SLiM was pretty easy to get going, and it seems nice so far. An extension posted.

How is it started?  I don't seem to get it to initiate.  The autologin is still in effect.  I peeked in /opt/bootlocal.sh and /home/<user>/.xsession and didn't find any reference to it.

I am developing in qemu for a target of usb key with no hard disk drivers, which should not make any difference here.

[curaga]

It's started from /root/.profile. If Slim fails, you would see a text login, not get the normal system; is the file being correctly replaced?

Which version of TC, details about your setup?

Do you also see this on vanilla 2.0rc4, with only slim and it's dependencies loaded?

[rgb]

It's started from /root/.profile. If Slim fails, you would see a text login, not get the normal system; is the file being correctly replaced?

Which version of TC, details about your setup?

Do you also see this on vanilla 2.0rc4, with only slim and it's dependencies loaded?

It is correctly replaced, but...  /root/.profile needs to be added to /opt/.filetool.lst as well to make it persistent...

I am not seeing the SLiM login, but a text login.  If I try to login as root at that text prompt, it tries starting up SLiM again, (as expected on further reflection) and returns me to the text login prompt.

Once logged in, on tc2.0rc3 and tc2.0rc4, things are fine.

As for details...  I'm doing devel in qemu, using "-kernel bzImage -initrd tinycore.gz -hda /dev/sdb2" with append options "quiet syslog local=hda home=hda restore=hda user=rgb waitusb=15".  /dev/sdb is a usb stick with 30MB ext3 first partition for /boot/ contents including kernel, initrd and extlinux bootloader, 500MB ext3 second partition for holding local, home and restore data.  I'm doing testing on that usb stick, using sdb2 for local, home and restore in the extlinux config (and have also successfully used UUID to specify that partition).  All this devel and testing is being done on x86 desktop and laptop hardware.

On my way to these conclusions, originally starting with a dirty data partition, I had various troubles including a black screen after X started up with icons across the bottom, but no right-click menu.  I did see the SLiM login screen a couple of times, but can't reproduce those conditions.  If I try to login as root, it attempts to run SLiM and re-presents me with a text login prompt.

[curaga]

There should be a log file /var/log/slim.log. Could you post it?


Just in case it might help, my test setup was similar to yours: qemu, TC 2.0rc4, and a loop-mounted image. In the image were slim, fontconfig, expat2 in the tce dir, and a backup with my added user TC password.
qemu -no-kqemu -kernel bzImage -initrd tinycore.gz -hda hda

I did not add /root/.profile to the backup, because the system version was automatically overwritten by the one in the extension. In repeated boots it always worked, I didn't get the text login nor a black screen.

edit: did I understand correctly, that you aren't using a tce directory, but only local? If so, /etc/slim.conf needs also to be in your backup.

[rgb]

There should be a log file /var/log/slim.log. Could you post it?


Just in case it might help, my test setup was similar to yours: qemu, TC 2.0rc4, and a loop-mounted image. In the image were slim, fontconfig, expat2 in the tce dir, and a backup with my added user TC password.
qemu -no-kqemu -kernel bzImage -initrd tinycore.gz -hda hda

I did not add /root/.profile to the backup, because the system version was automatically overwritten by the one in the extension. In repeated boots it always worked, I didn't get the text login nor a black screen.

edit: did I understand correctly, that you aren't using a tce directory, but only local? If so, /etc/slim.conf needs also to be in your backup.

Ah, there's one difference:  I'm using local= rather than tce=, so it is being installed once and run from local, rather than being installed on each boot.  So I think I *do* need /root/.profile in the backup, or remaster it, checking for the presence of that extension...

I'll try adding /etc/slim.conf

Here's the contents of /var/log/slim.log:
/usr/bin/xauth:  creating new authority file /var/run/slim.auth
slim: X server could not be started
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 key
slim: could not open display ':0.0'

Well, that's somewhat self-explanatory...

[rgb]

I'll try adding /etc/slim.conf

Ah-hah...  that did it.  Thank you.  I had manually downloaded slim.tce to have a look at all the files it installs and missed slim.conf which was at the beginning.  Now next question is why does it take so long to display the login screen after starting X (displaying a black screen with the huge "X" pointer only).  On this qemu with 256MB RAM on a 1.8GHz host, it takes 40s to start up.  I'll test on real hardware...  and that default graphic has to go...

[curaga]

Qemu is slow, emulation always is.

[Fredux]

Qemu is slow, emulation always is.

I'm looking to build a small box that would actually just serve as an X console to a remote server. Would SLIM do that or shall I go for xdm? What I'm expecting is a TC that would jump directly in graphical mode and attach to the login prompt of remote server.

Also if anybody has relevant experience, that would definitely help.

Thanks.

[curaga]

Slim doesn't do networking, XDM does.

But, you don't need either on the client, the client only needs X (might need Xorg, I'm not sure Xvesa can do it):

Xvesa -screen myres -mouse mymouse -query my.ip.of.X.server

or by broadcasting for the first server:

Xvesa -screen myres -mouse mymouse -broadcast