From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.0.0; Linux) Description of problem: When in runlevel 5 (running X), and starting "Xconfigurator" in KDE 3 as root, results in Xconfigurator starting a test session in display :1 (CTRL-ALT-F8). Without doing anything, going back to display :0 (using CTRL-ALT-F7), I see an error message from Xconfigurator 'there was a problem ... '. Should Xconfigurator be startable while running X ? Doesn't it mess up with the running X ? How does Alan Cox look without a beard? Is there enough Video RAM starting a second X server ? On my Matrox Millennium 4 Meg. this appearently does not work. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Start Red Hat Linux release 7.2.92 in Runlevel 5, e.g. running KDE 3. 2. Start "Xconfigurator" ("su -") ("Xconfigurator") 3. Give requested information (video RAM, video resolution, etc) to Xconfigurator. Actual Results: 1. Xconfigurator starts a test display on display :1 (CTRL-ALT-F8). However the expected GNOME test picture does not appear. (only a dotted-gray background with the standard X mouse cursor). 2. Going back to display :0 (CTRL-ALT-F7) show Xconfigurator with error message. ('there was a problem ...) Expected Results: Hmm. not really sure if this is a bug or a RFC; I think the proper way for Xconfigurator is to : - Detect if X is running -> If so -> Abort X setup This kind of thing will IMO always result in shortage of Video RAM so it's better to make a check in Xconfigurator. Additional info: Xconfigurator-4.10.1-1 XFree86-4.2.0-6.48
Xconfigurator will be going away and being replaced by a new configuration tool at some point in the future. Running it while X is already running is as you surmised - not supported. I agree that having it detect if X is running and aborting with a user friendly message is likely the nicer solution, however I dont think it is worth spending the time on doing such. Closing WONTFIX, however if someone feels enterprising enough to exercise their true open source spirit and attach a patch to do this cleanly, I'd be glad to have a quick peek and apply it. Feel free to reopen with attached patch.