Race bug in xsession-knoppix

[mack]

Klaus Knopper - master himself -, thank you for your bug report and your detailed error analysis. I had this problem today too and asked my what it could be. I think the mkdir is no workaround, but the solution. its ksplash problem if it creates "wrong" permissions.

I'm glad to have saved you the need to hunt this bug.
It was a particularly tricky one to track down. I actually remastered again for it, with the original KNOPPIX filesystem - no files changed - just some extra driver in initrd. When the bug still appeareded in a system with nothing changed but a driver which is totally unrelated to KDE or X11, I figured it must be some weird timing thing. Took days to figure out!

Re mkdir, I guess we could call it a solution, at least until ksplash is fixed. The funny thing is that I didn't even find where ksplash calls mkdir(2) for it. I straced it from 45xsession, didn't see an mkdir call, but the dirs were just there after a few seconds. I guess it triggers some other process which causes it, by some IPC method. (It doesn't fork anything that causes it - strace followed forks).

You ask, why the ksplash is loaded so early ?

Well, its all about psychology, yo know. Joe user, sees an grey screen (standard x) and waits and nothing happens, and he turns the computer off or is angry or bored.

But if there is quick visual feedback "Something is happening" Joe User is happy and waits for it ...

Thats the whole secret about why people can wait about microsoft boot (There is some bar moving), but not if there is just text. It stands there for already 1 minute, nothing happens.

Yes, I know all that - I read the comment before ksplash is executed.

Me, I'd prefer to just eliminate the 'quiet' keyword from the kernel params and read the kernel messages while booting. Its much more fun than watching a bar. But than again, thats me

Klaus Knopper, does not make Knoppix so good, because it has only great hardware-detection like many think. No, its the small details, that matter and of which Klaus Knoper takes care. (Like with openoffice also an quick screen is started to keep the user happy)

There _must_ be some magic in Knoppix ) <=

cu

Fabian

I totally agree. Knoppix rocks.

On a side note, I still think openoffice takes way too much time to load. A splash screen is not enough for that. They should splash some tetris or something for the user to play with, as openoffice loads.