init observations

[Mike A. Harris]

Kenneth Porter wrote:
> --On Tuesday, November 15, 2005 3:15 PM -0600 Mike Chambers 
> <mike at miketc.com> wrote:
> 
>> Not a developer or programmer, but what about those systems that use
>> x/fonts from a server and not on the workstation?  How would X start
>> without networking capabilities?
> 
> What does it currently do if your font server is unreachable? Does it 
> wait, or fall back to local fonts until it can reach the server? Or just 
> fall over?

Our out of the box supported default configuration of the X server,
is that it requires a properly configured xfs font server to be
running on the same machine.  If xfs is not running, the X server
will not start, as it will be unable to find the 'fixed' and
'cursor' fonts.

The X server and font server are highly configureable however, and
various people use them in various non-default setups.  Some people
might have their X server manually configured to not use xfs, or to
use xfs over the network via TCP being enabled.  Some people may
have /usr mounted over NFS, possibly read-only, and the X server
binary and other X applications in /usr/bin et al. aren't available
until /usr is mounted, which requires networking to be started.

There are as many other custom setups likely, as there are users
out there. ;o)

On a side note:
When modular X hits rawhide over the next few days, it is highly
recommended that people using customized configurations that are
not the default, test their setups with the new modular X, and
see if they need to adjust their configuration.

HTH.