rhgb and gdm-early-login two great tastes?

[Adam Jackson]

On Sat, 2007-08-11 at 18:20 -0400, Jon Nettleton wrote:
> I just read somewhere somebody saying that rhgb was a horrible
> idea and that a nicer boot process will come once kernel mode-
> setting exists.  Funny how some things kick your brain in such a way
> you actually look at things a little different.  This was the kick I
> needed  after staring blankly at my bootlog charts trying to figure
> out how to shave more time off the process (I have maxed out at 40
> seconds).
> 
> My problem is that you have to take the speed hit of starting an X 
> server eventually.  Kernel modesetting just isn't going to help that.
> Well then all the pieces fell together and this is what I have hacked
> together so far.

To be fair, the X server isn't the slow part of starting graphics.  The
real reason for wanting kernel modesetting is so we can do this stuff
all the way forward in the boot process, basically as soon as you hit
the initramfs.  This lets you mask the fact that kernel init still takes
>10s on most hardware.

> 1)  Add an option to rhgb so it doesn't fork and daemonize 
> 2)  patch /etc/gdm/Init/Default so it checks that rhgb is executable
> and the file /var/lock/subsys/rhgb doesn't exist.  If those two
> qualifications are true then run rhgb -n -f -u :0.0 
> 3)  modify rc.sysinit with the gdm-early-login patch, so gdm is
> started right after the root filesystem is mounted rw.
> 
> What this gives me is boot up, as soon as / is rw start up gdm.  Gdm
> starts rhgb using it's own X server.  As soon as rhgb is done gdm
> launches the greeter using the same X server.  No flashing or
> switching back and forth to consoles, etc etc.

This sounds interesting.  Got the patches handy?

- ajax