Bug 834686

Summary:	fbcon cursor_blink disabled on livecd, enabled on freshly installed system
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Oliver Henshaw <oliver.henshaw>
Component:	spin-kickstarts	Assignee:	Jeroen van Meeuwen <vanmeeuwen+fedora>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	17	CC:	adam.stokes, bcl, bruno, dhuff, gansalmon, itamar, Jasper.Hartline, jonathan, katzj, kernel-maint, kevin, madhu.chinakonda, maxamillion, vanmeeuwen+fedora
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Reopened
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2013-08-01 17:18:26 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Oliver Henshaw 2012-06-22 19:11:02 UTC

Description of problem:

On the fedora 17 live iso (default or kde), the virtual console cursor does not blink. On a freshly installed system (from the live image) the vt cursor does blink.

In the livecd:
# cat /sys/devices/virtual/graphics/fbcon/cursor_blink
-1

On the installed system, from Xorg:
# cat /sys/devices/virtual/graphics/fbcon/cursor_blink
0
On the installed system, from another vt:
# cat /sys/devices/virtual/graphics/fbcon/cursor_blink
1


This is on a kvm system with spice/qxl, but it looks like vnc/cirrus has the same behaviour. I have some kvm systems installed from the f16 livecd but neither these nor the livecd itself have a blinking cursor in the vt.

I'm not sure which of these behaviours is the bug. Is there a policy on whether the fbcon cursor blinks (e.g. for power saving reasons)?


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

kernel-3.3.4-5.fc17.x86_64


How reproducible:

Boot to desktop or run-level 3. If on desktop, switch to another virtual terminal. Observe whether the cursor blinks. Check /sys/devices/virtual/graphics/fbcon/cursor_blink from the console and from the desktop.

Comment 1 Oliver Henshaw 2012-06-22 19:21:27 UTC

If I read http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blobdiff;f=drivers/video/console/fbcon.c;h=b7e143efa81d598ddc6ed54847bea8ca32dd277a;hp=7888e319f9e193623aa99da07d5c7d4aeb9ca426;hb=acba9cd01974353294ecd0c750581a6707d1ebe1;hpb=01b15bd4bfae794246c047b961a282e19014e240 correctly then cursor_blink only return -1 on the 'goto err' paths of show_cursor_blink(), but what that means I don't know.

Comment 2 Josh Boyer 2012-07-10 14:30:36 UTC

We can't change the live images after release.  Also, this doesn't really seem to be an actual problem but rather just an inconsistency.  On some desktops, the cursor blinking is controlled by system settings so it can be disabled, etc.

I'm going to close this bug out as there isn't much we can do at this point.

Comment 3 Oliver Henshaw 2012-07-12 16:18:12 UTC

What I meant is that there's a behaviour difference between the liveiso image and the (pristine) image installed to disk by liveinst. And it isn't just the release image, I can reproduce this with a liveiso built from F17 + updates, ie:

kernel-3.4.4-5.fc17.x86_64
plymouth-0.8.5-0.2012.04.27.1.fc17.x86_64
dracut-018-78.git20120622.fc17.noarch

There doesn't seem to be a current rawhide nightly, so I can't test this on F18.

Secondly, I'm talking about virtual terminals (i.e. Ctrl+Alt+Fx) not graphical terminals. I don't think fbcon cursor blinking is controlled by gconf on any desktop, is it?


Note: I'm pretty sure it's the live-image case that's broken as fbcon/cursor_blink stays at -1 and I can't turn the blink on or off by echoing "1" or "0" to it.

Comment 4 Josh Boyer 2012-07-12 18:20:19 UTC

Given the same kernel is used in both cases, I'm going to reassing this to livecd-tools for now.  The code in the kernel isn't changing, so something the live images do is causing the inconsistency.

Comment 5 Brian Lane 2012-07-13 18:38:24 UTC

livecd tools doesn't do anything to control blinking either way. This must be a spins issue.

Comment 6 Fedora End Of Life 2013-07-04 05:58:27 UTC

This message is a reminder that Fedora 17 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 17. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 
'version' of '17'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 17's end of life.

Bug Reporter:  Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that 
we may not be able to fix it before Fedora 17 is end of life. If you 
would still like  to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it 
against a later version  of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 
'version' to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 17's end of life.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 7 Fedora End Of Life 2013-08-01 17:18:34 UTC

Fedora 17 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2013-07-30. Fedora 17 is 
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further 
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of 
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.