• Logs like .xsession-errors, was: fvwm on Debian 12: Modules do not star

    From Thomas Schmitt@21:1/5 to Max Nikulin on Tue Jul 23 14:30:01 2024
    Hi,

    Max Nikulin wrote:
    A bit off-topic question. In what wiki page you would expect to find suggestions to inspect ~/.xsession-errors file and journalctl output?

    I pasted ".xsession-errors" into the "Search:" field at the upper right
    corner of any Debian wiki page and clicked the "Text" button.
    https://wiki.debian.org/JigdoOnLive?action=fullsearch&context=180&value=.xsession-errors&fullsearch=Text
    The only helpful match is

    https://wiki.debian.org/JigdoOnLive?action=fullsearch&context=180&value=.xsession-errors&fullsearch=Text

    "What Does The Log Say?
    ...
    If you're doing something with your window manager or other X client
    programs, then their output probably won't be visible to you
    immediately. The location of their output will depend on how you
    started X. If you used startx(1) from a console, the output probably
    appeared on that console (try Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get back to it, then
    Alt-F7 (usually) to get back to X). If you logged in with xdm(8), then
    xdm creates a file called .xsession-errors in your home directory, and
    you should look there. gdm(8) uses .gnome-errors. The other "*dm"
    programs may have similar files."

    But i simply should have remembered that olde file or have looked
    for ~/.x* rather than only for ~/.X* as i did.

    The wiki page asks

    "Am I Alone?"

    Surely not. Time is a harsh mistress.


    https://0pointer.de/blog/projects/journalctl.html

    I suffer substantial stack pain ...


    Have a nice day :)

    Thomas

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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to Thomas Schmitt on Tue Jul 23 14:40:01 2024
    On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 14:20:43 +0200, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
    The only helpful match is

    https://wiki.debian.org/JigdoOnLive?action=fullsearch&context=180&value=.xsession-errors&fullsearch=Text

    "What Does The Log Say?
    ...
    If you're doing something with your window manager or other X client
    programs, then their output probably won't be visible to you
    immediately. The location of their output will depend on how you
    started X. If you used startx(1) from a console, the output probably
    appeared on that console (try Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get back to it, then
    Alt-F7 (usually) to get back to X). If you logged in with xdm(8), then
    xdm creates a file called .xsession-errors in your home directory, and
    you should look there. gdm(8) uses .gnome-errors. The other "*dm"
    programs may have similar files."

    There's some outdated info in that paragraph.

    In Debian, startx uses /etc/X11/Xsession (among many other files), which redirects all output to ~/.xsession-errors if it can.

    ~/.xsession-errors has been the standard place to look for WM and X
    client errors for so long that I can't even remember where I first
    learned about it.

    Also, it's unlikely you'll be able to "get back to" the underlying
    console from which you ran startx in a modern version of Debian. I
    want to say... since jessie? Whenever the big X server changes occurred.

    Ever since then, on most systems, the X server runs in the same TTY
    where startx was typed, instead of opening a new TTY. This is actually
    really good, security-wise, because it means someone can't walk up to
    your machine, press Ctrl-Alt-F1, and then use Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Z to kill
    or suspend your X session and get control of your shell. That used to
    be a possibility.

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