Description of problem: First off a bit of background. This wasn't a problem in earlier Fedora/GDM versions, and I'm assuming this issue is caused by upstream GDM, and while it seems to be a bug, it may actually be a "feature" (one which I need to find out how to disable). At any rate, the problem is as follows: GDM seems to monitor the sanity of the X server. If there are errors present during X initialization, GDM will not load. This may not seem like a problem, however there are several conditions where this behavior may lead to user confusion and frustration: 1) For example when a certain X module cannot load. Especially true for configurations that may be using the proprietary nvidia driver and if there's no correspondence between the X driver and the kernel module (most commonly seen when the kernel is updated and the corresponding module is missing), then in X there's going to be a condition which will prevent the GLX module to load, as there is no way the card could do any acceleration. However X itself still "works". This is caught by GDM and the result is that users can't "login" (not even to try and figure out what might have gone wrong). The usual behavior in this situation was that whenever any GL context was opened, the X server would crash (guess GDM tries to prevent that "crashing" itself, or rather preventing itself from running) 2) The problem I'm experiencing. When a given device cannot be initialized. This goes as much for video as it goes for anything else. My problem is that that I have configured a Wacom tablet to work with my Fedora 7 workstation. However if the tablet is not present or attached to the computer when GDM loads, GDM will find an error in X and will not start. The error, obviously is that Xorg cannot initialize the wacom device. This is a rather serious problem for me, as I work at a lab where there are more PCs than tablets and we need to swap the tablets from one machine to another (rather than anchoring the machines to the tablets or vice versa). Currently the Wacom drivers doesn't support proper "hotplugging" so in order to initialize them, users at the lab are instructed to exit the session and log back in, or if the machine is at GDM, simply restart the server with ctrl+alt+backspace (not the most elegant solution, but hey! It works). This has worked rather well with the farm of FC6 machines we have. I was asked to see if we could move the lab to F7, after installing it and configuring it on my main machine and by chance discovering that not only critical errors would trigger the above mentioned GDM behavior, but also "other" input device errors, which are not by any means critical, as the CorePointer and CoreKeyboard are still present, I was rather surprised. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): gdm-2.18.3-1.fc7 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. (mis)configure anything that might cause "harmless" (EE)s in xorg.conf 2. Switch runlevels (to 3 then 5 or booting straight into 3 then edit, then change to 5). GDM will display an error message stating that is has hung. Actual results: GDM doesn't load. Expected results: GDM to load when not critical errors are encountered (i.e, anything but the Section "Device" failing) Additional info: Just for completeness sake, X loads and functions just "fine" by getting into the session from a text console, switching to runlevel 3, killing the X server and then issuing "startx"
Created attachment 160295 [details] Xorg.conf file.
This message is a reminder that Fedora 7 is nearing the end of life. Approximately 30 (thirty) days from now Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 7. 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 '7'. 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 7'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 7 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 please change the 'version' of this bug. If you are unable to change the version, please add a comment here and someone will do it for you. 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. If possible, it is recommended that you try the newest available Fedora distribution to see if your bug still exists. Please read the Release Notes for the newest Fedora distribution to make sure it will meet your needs: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ The process we are following is described here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping
Fedora 7 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on June 13, 2008. Fedora 7 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.