[Solved] noob killah and logind questions

[RandomCharacter]

I have two loosely coupled questions, probably with some sub-questions.

1) My n00b killah installation uses systemd-logind for session management. I tried to determine how this happens by looking at the scripts. But the .xinitrc script calls ck-launch session. However, there are no console-kit-daemons running. "loginctl -a" shows that logind is managing the sessions. How and why, please? I tried to figure this out by reading the script, but the script is misleading me.

2) My main installation is Siduction Linux. Its startup script also calls ck-launch-session, and it has 65 console-kit-daemon pids running. systemctl shows that logind is running, but "loginctl -a" shows that it is not managing any sessions. "ck-list-session" shows that console kit is managing my login session. How can I cleanly switch this installation to use logind and not console-kit, as n00b killah does?

The Siduction devs are lying or white lying to me about this. They simply tell me that I must run console-kit and that is that. But my n00b killah instance disproves this. My Siduction instance and my n00b killah instance are running the same version of systemd and logind, currently 204-7. They should both be able to use logind for session mgmt. How can I set this up?

Please advise, even by pointing me to (readable) documentation. I would love to get rid of console kit.

Thanks,
Tim

[machinebacon]

Hello Tim,
a very interesting question that can only be answered in a typical Debian manner:
the transition from pure sysvinit to pure systemd is split into three, just in recent days it is possible to run a dedicated systemd or sysvinit session, to be exact since the sysvinit and systemd packages split from each other. In the past it was not possible to remove sysvinit without typing "I know what I am doing" and going the risk of killing the system. Of course you can simply remove ck-launch-session from the .xinitrc file, usually things should work fine (I have just tested it with Pony Muncher which is basically the same like Noob Killah plus graphical bloat). As only (readable) documentation I can only point you to Lennart Poetterings blog. [1]
Maybe we should note that logind is not the only way of managing user processes and privileges, and systemd can completely replace session managers like xfce4-session or gnome-session, and eventually also replace a login manager. Inside of a session [2], systemd can give privileges to user actions, when logind can give elevated rights for managing suspend, shutdown, etc. If both are removed, and also consolekit is removed, we would have to give users elevated rights through entries in the sudoers file, for example, which makes sense on a single-user computer with very basic setup (like Noob Killah, where I really wanted to have the user being responsible for every action he takes). Of course a fully integrated desktop system like the (GUI) versions of siduction can not afford to do this (manual mounting, only root can shutdown, etc), so they use these mechanisms: a login manager, systemd user sessions (that are now finally integrated in most DEs) etc. We should also remember that their XFCE flavour still uses sysvinit as init daemon, so a general answer is not easy. IIRC XFCE4 does support systemd user sessions now, no idea what siduction does with this.
The problem is that we have too many choices in Linux: dbus, consolekit, upower, udisks, systemd, who does what and who needs whom? As soon as you want to use powerd for the shutdown/reboot/suspend stuff, you need to run a dbus-x11 launched for your Xsession. If people want to accept additional services running just to save some keystrokes (or an appr. entry in sudoers), it's their decision. I cannot talk for siduction because I haven't been using their desktop since 2012, but I can definitely tell you that you do not need logind, systemd, consolekit or dbus on a system like Noob Killah. Though, dbus brings some good stuff like app-internal notifications.
I am also quite unsatisfied about this status and go pedaling back to what I know worked perfectly over a decade. And I am completely honest with you: most of the stuff at systemd I have not yet fully absorbed and understood. And I even doubt that Lennart fully understands what he eventually wants to achieve with it.

[1] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/self-d ... -boot.html

[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sy ... ur_Session

[dkeg]

This is the dissaray I speak of in the kickstart thread. Tim, I raised a similar question before, but not as detailed and thought driven. We spoke about this before. Remove it all! I have no systemd, no console-kit, no ck-launch. I do have compton though!

But that's just my setup choice right now.

[RandomCharacter]

Hmmm. I don't think I did anything to add systemd and logind to my n00b killah installation. I believe it just came that way. Or, maybe I'm misunderstanding what machinebacon said.

I think what I'm going to try is a fresh install of n00b killah (because I neglected to select the pae kernel version, the first time), and see what is what.

n00b killah hits just the right spot of minimalism, for me. I just wish there was an amd64 version of it.

Thanks,
Tim

PS - Another fact I noticed about my n00b killah system: logind is even managing the root console session before X is started.

[rhowaldt]

^ you could probably roast your own amd64 version of it? :)

[machinebacon]

@Tim, if you want a 64bit version, go with Spring 2014.1 and simply pull the xserver/openbox packages onboard. I might make a respin for amd64 -- could be ready for Wednesday.
As I said before, noobkillah came out at a time when systemd and sysvinit were 'bundled', now you can remove either of them (or both if you dare - don't do it though!) Right now, in Sid, you can have systemd or sysvinit, just like it should be. And this is why I have chosen sysvinit for recent releases.

[RandomCharacter]

Thanks. Taking Spring and rolling my own would probably help me learn the most, so I think I'll go with that. That sounds like fun.

Tim

[dkeg]

Spring is a great base. I used it for Gruffalo and was a great project.

[DebianJoe]

For sure, take Spring and make something cool with it. I replaced two very long-term installs with Spring remixes, and couldn't be happier with the results. Building your own blend tends to help solidify some of the theory into practice, and when things are rough around the edges you can only point at yourself for the poor results. :D

[RandomCharacter]

I have another question. I have installed Spring 2014.2 amd64. Immediately after installation, in a root text console, it was using 114 MB ram. n00b killah in Openbox with a terminal uses only 79 MB. Is there that much difference between amd64 and i686?

Tim

PS - that was the fastest Linux installation I have ever seen!

[machinebacon]

yes. install. debian's 3.13-trunk kernel (enable experimental for this )

[GekkoP]

Remove it all! I have no systemd, no console-kit, no ck-launch.

This.
Just removed systemd on Elektra, no console-kit, no ck-launch, no compton. Everything works.

[machinebacon]

^ same here on 90% of my partitions. ;)

[RandomCharacter]

Ok, I'm making steady, careful progress on configuring Spring. I have installed kernel 3.13.5, xorg, openbox, tint2, nitrogen, added a swap partition to /etc/fstab, installed iceweasel unstable (24.0.3), and ran ceni to configure wireless (I had configured ethernet as step one after installation). Everything is working well, so far.

Now, there are so many things to do that I don't know where to turn. I definitely need keepassx and irssi, so I will probably install them, next. I still need to configure tint2 and nitrogen. After that, who knows?

Tim

[machinebacon]

Nice progress :)

You might exactly go off the beaten track and try alternative software, for example instead of irssi you could try weechat, ekg2 or centerim (latter two can also connect to jabber/xmpp, for instance), or a graphical IRC client like hexchat.

In a terminal, use "search <searchterm> | more" to query APT.

[dkeg]

I've been using weechat

[DebianJoe]

*cough* erc *cough*

[machinebacon]

*cough*tinyirc*cough*

[wuxmedia]

*cough*IRC over Telnet*splutter*

[rhowaldt]

*cough* a careful configuration of rocks *burp*