On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 10:14:35AM -0500, Doug Newgard wrote: > On Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:47:57 -0500 > Dutch Ingraham <stoa@xxxxxx> 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 <stoa@xxxxxx> 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.
