[lucid] if booting without 'splash', gdm starts X on wrong vt

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please run the command 'apport-collect 518352' which will attach necessary information for debugging this as an Xorg problem. Thanks in advance.

I am having this same problem. Uploading with apport-collect

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: gdm 2.29.6-0ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-13.18-generic
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-13-generic x86_64
UserGroups:

apport information

Does it work if you remove plymouth from your system?

Yes, that seems to work. I see errors relating to plymouth when I boot now and startup hangs for a good 20-30 seconds before saying it cannot mount plymouth... but it works! :)

Thanks

Are you booting with or without 'splash' on the kernel commandline?

yeah, I have installed plymouth, and I only removed 'splash' boot's argument

I am booting with splash. This was an upgrade from 9.10 to 10.04

me too, I also upgraded form Karmic

Ok, thanks. If you boot without 'splash', there's an unfortunate interaction between plymouth and gdm. gdm checks if plymouth is running, to decide whether it can use the same VT as plymouth to start its first X server; but when booting without splash, plymouth never changes VTs, which means that gdm will start X on VT1 - which will conflict with the getty that is started there.

I'm not sure what the right way will be to solve this - either plymouth can switch VTs even when not using 'splash', but that might defeat the purpose of the nosplash handling; or plymouth can add a way for gdm to ask if the boot splash is active, and not answer 'yes' in this case.

Termina, since you are booting *with* splash, you should file a separate bug report for your issue.

08:25 < slangasek> architecture-wise, can you tell me what is *supposed* to be happening in this case?
08:26 < Keybuk> plymouth is supposed to switch to vt7 and use a text plugin that keeps the screen black until
                passphrases are required, etc.
08:27 < Keybuk> this isn't all quite right yet
08:27 < Keybuk> we're basically not doing things architecturally the same way as RH
08:27 < Keybuk> we always want plymouth running
08:27 < Keybuk> and always want plymouth to have an active splash screen
08:27 < Keybuk> at some point we just want to switch from that being a very plain text one to being a graphical one
08:27 < Keybuk> (when we have the graphics driver)
08:28 < Keybuk> either way, we should be always on vt7
08:29 < Keybuk> it's not so much writing code, but calling the code we have in the right order
08:31 < slangasek> so plymouthd would automatically switch vt and blank screen on startup, and then look for a fb on
                   --show-splash?
08:31 < Keybuk> slangasek: don't really know yet
08:31 < Keybuk> I think that's probably easiest and minimum effort

Can confirm, after disabling splash to get a working X experience from bug #523788

GDM starts on VT1, however, no funny login interactions for me.

This bug was fixed in the package plymouth - 0.8.0~-13

---------------
plymouth (0.8.0~-13) lucid; urgency=low

  [ Steve Langasek ]
  * Don't attach /proc/cmdline to apport reports, this is already in the
    standard info that gets collected...

  [ Alberto Milone ]
  * ubuntu_logo theme:
    - New logo from Otto Greenslade.
    - Switch off dots starting from the ones on the left instead of
      switching them off all at once.

  [ Scott James Remnant ]
  * Move the Ubuntu logo up as discussed with Otto, this makes the mouse
    cursor appear between the logo and dots and solves the optical illusion
    of the logo being too low. LP: #535014.
  * Don't include message about disk checks, which can come from mountall.
  * Drop the rc script splash functions, we don't want the SysV-rc compat
    stuff messing around with the splash screen - this can be entirely
    managed by Upstart now. LP: #528787, #537262.

  * Plymouth Fix Mega Patch:
    - This hasn't yet been broken up into enough bits to send upstream, and
      doesn't *quite* address all the issues yet, but it's a major step.

    - Rewrite the VT handling, rather than abusing /dev/tty0 keep all VT
      operations on the actual VT (tty7), this avoids issues where we set
      the graphics mode of the wrong VT or put the wrong VT into VT_PROCESS
      mode. LP: #520460, #522598, #526321, #533135
    - Don't attempt VT switch when using non-VT consoles.
    - Make VT mandatory for renderer plugins, so we fallback gracefully to
      text when the console is not a VT. LP: #516825, #527083.
    - Restore VT when finished displaying the splash unless plymouth quit
      is called with --retain-splash. LP: #506297.
    - Activate VT from text and details plugins, rather than haphardly in
      the main code, this means the textual boot is also on VT7.
      LP: #518352, #520122.
    - Add a --has-active-vt command that can let gdm inquire whether it
      should reuse Plymouth's VT; fixes the issue where Plymouth has no
      visible splash screen and X ends up on VT1. LP: #519641, #533572.

    - Don't open terminal device in X11, fixes the issue where X will crash
      when debugging plugins using the X11 renderer.
    - Add --tty option to plymouthd for debugging when X is running and
      thus using an alternate VT.

    - Improve deactivate command so that the terminal is no longer watched
      for keyboard input, session is closed, etc. LP: #528787, #531650.
    - Ignore mode changes while deactivated, otherwise we can end up
      resetting the VT back into text mode while X is starting up.
      LP: #523788, #502509.

    - Fix races with simultaneous quit and deactivate commands, or multiples
      of those commands.
    - Ignore --show-splash, --hide-splash, etc. commands while deactivated.
    - Add reactivate command for testing purposes.

    - Don't scan out drm buffer contents to fbcon when not called with
      quit --retain-splash. LP: #527180.

    - Avoid resetting the terminal to unbuffered mode on every write, this
      results in setting X's VT into raw mode and results in the X server
      crashing on key presses. LP: #532047, #534861, #519460, #520...