On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 09:23:01AM -0500, Doug Newgard wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:11:45 -0500 Dutch Ingraham wrote:

...

Hello all:

TL;DR: One Arch installation will allow redirecting startx's stderr to a file, one won't. What is the difference between systems?

Is X running as root or as the user (rootless)? This can change based on configuration and on drivers used.

Excellent question - how is this conclusively determined? Note I have taken no explicit action either way, i.e., to enable rootlessness or not. Looking at the xorg wiki, it appears as though 3 conditions are necessary for running "rootless": 1. systemd >= 216; OK, I'm at 231 on both machines; 2. start X via xinit; OK, I'm using xinit through startx, not a display manager; 3. if I can summarize, if using a proprietary display driver, such as Catalyst or Nvidia, need to take an extra step to run rootless; *this may be the issue.* On the machine where redirection works, I am using the nvidia proprietary driver; on the machine where the error occurs, I am using the xf-video-ati driver. So, unless I have step 3 above backwards (which is entirely possible), the question is how to redirect stderr when running rootless? (If I am in fact misunderstanding, please explain so a moron like me can understand!) Thanks for your help.

On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 10:14:35AM -0500, Doug Newgard wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:47:57 -0500 Dutch Ingraham wrote:

...

On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 09:23:01AM -0500, Doug Newgard wrote:

...

On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:11:45 -0500 Dutch Ingraham wrote:

...

Hello all:

TL;DR: One Arch installation will allow redirecting startx's stderr to a file, one won't. What is the difference between systems?

Is X running as root or as the user (rootless)? This can change based on configuration and on drivers used.

Excellent question - how is this conclusively determined? Note I have taken no explicit action either way, i.e., to enable rootlessness or not.

Looking at the xorg wiki, it appears as though 3 conditions are necessary for running "rootless":

1. systemd >= 216; OK, I'm at 231 on both machines; 2. start X via xinit; OK, I'm using xinit through startx, not a display manager; 3. if I can summarize, if using a proprietary display driver, such as Catalyst or Nvidia, need to take an extra step to run rootless; *this may be the issue.*

On the machine where redirection works, I am using the nvidia proprietary driver; on the machine where the error occurs, I am using the xf-video-ati driver.

So, unless I have step 3 above backwards (which is entirely possible), the question is how to redirect stderr when running rootless? (If I am in fact misunderstanding, please explain so a moron like me can understand!)

Thanks for your help.

rooted vs rootless does look like one difference between the systems. Next, I would enable rooted X on the problem machine and see if it works. If it does, we know we've narrowed down the issue.

Bingo. Created the Xwrapper.config file with the line "needs_root_rights = yes" and I can now startx and redirect stderr. To get back the rootless operation, I then backed that file out and appended, to ~/.xserverrc, "vt$XDG_VTNR -keeptty." This seems to be working at this point. (Note I had, some days ago, appended the "vt$XDG_VTNR" to the .xserverrc, but that alone doesn't work. Need the -keeptty.) Thanks for your help.

On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:24:12 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:11:45 -0500, Dutch Ingraham wrote:

...

TL;DR: One Arch installation will allow redirecting startx's stderr to a file, one won't. What is the difference between systems?

Hi,

what actually was too long to read?

Did you for testing purpose install a display manger, e.g. lightdm? Does lightdm or any other DM also not provide the wanted output? If so, what does the display manager's log file in /var provide?

Pardon, your mal was TL;DR, my bad, ok, .xsession-errors is used, here is output, however, what is mentioned by "Please also check the log file at "/home/dutch/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log" for additional information"? -- Death of ROXTerm https://sourceforge.net/p/roxterm/discussion/422638/thread/60da6975/

On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:24:12PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:11:45 -0500, Dutch Ingraham wrote:

...

TL;DR: One Arch installation will allow redirecting startx's stderr to a file, one won't. What is the difference between systems?

Hi,

what actually was too long to read?

Did you for testing purpose install a display manger, e.g. lightdm? Does lightdm or any other DM also not provide the wanted output? If so, what does the display manager's log file in /var provide?

Regards, Ralf

Thanks for your response. I do have sddm installed, as it came along with the Plasma goo, but it is disabled as I never use a display manager. I could enable it for testing purposes, though, if other testing does not pan out (see other responses in this thread.) Thanks again.