[NBLUG/talk] What controls the "prompt"?

ME dugan at passwall.com
Mon Aug 4 10:42:01 PDT 2003


What it helps to do is diagnose if there is a terminal display issue
(configuration, lack of colors in pallete, etc) or if there is an issue
with the startup of the terminal.

Consider cases where users setup a desktop background image that uses
thousands of colors. By default, root's won't have such things. Also, in
cases where gnome display preferences are set (color of font, background,
highlighting, etc.) a user may have prefs they have set that get loaded
each time they start, but root will get defaults (unless the user changed
those too.)

What is needed is an identification on where the problem is occuring. If
the application is stuck in some kind of wait state, then permission,
libs, application corruption, etc. are things to check.

If it is found that the command being typed actually do execute in the
terminal that does not display, the we know where to focus attention.

It is a kind of binary search for a problem. Each test should be designed
to provide 2 possible outcomes and each outcome further refines the next
steps to take.

-ME

Mitch Patenaude said:
> That's a very interesting theory, though I'm not sure why it would work
> for root and not for the normal uwer (root's environment uses fewer
> colors I suppose).
>
> Here's another theory.  Non-superuser applications are failing to
> properly allocate ptys, probably becuase of a permission issue in /dev.
>
> As root.. do the following and see if your output is equivilent:
> [root at calisto root]# ls -ld /dev /dev/ptmx
> drwx--x--x   15 root     root        90112 Jul  8 06:50 /dev/
> crw-rw-rw-    1 root     root       5,   2 Aug  4 10:03 /dev/ptmx
>     { If /dev/ptmx isn't globally readable/writable, then non-root
>       applications can't applocate new pseudoterminals, which would
>       cause just this sort of problem.  If /dev/ isn't executable,
>       then that too would prevent access to /dev/ptmx, but that
>       would be causing a LOT of weirdness, so I doubt that is the
>       problem. }
>
> [root at calisto root]# ls -l /dev/pts
> total 0
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,    Jul 17 23:52 0
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,   1 Aug  1 15:48 1
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,  10 Aug  2 23:24 10
> crw--w----    1 mrp      tty      136,  11 Aug  4 10:04 11
> crw-------    1 mrp      users    136,   2 Jul 29 23:53 2
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,   3 Aug  3 00:17 3
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,   4 Aug  3 23:24 4
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,   5 Jul 22 18:27 5
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,   6 Aug  3 00:07 6
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,   7 Jul 29 22:44 7
> crw--w----    1 mrp      users    136,   8 Aug  3 19:59 8
> crw--w----    1 mrp      tty      136,   9 Aug  3 19:44 9
>    { there should be one entry in this directory for every pseudoterminal
>      you have open and comparing the output before and after you launch
> the
>      prompt-less terminal. }
>
>     -- Mitch
>
> On Monday, Aug 4, 2003, at 09:15 US/Pacific, ME wrote:
>
>> Try this:
>> Start the terminal that does not display anything.
>> Paste in this text:
>>
>> touch /tmp/test123.txt
>>
>> Then go to a terminal that does display text.
>> See if the file /tmp/test123.xt exists.
>>
>> If it does, then I would inspect the number of BPP you have selected
>> for
>> your card (8bpp?) and see if the window manager/env manager has just
>> used
>> up all of you colors. Parhaps KDE does not use as many colors as Gnome.
>>
>> If you have an XFree86.log (check /var/log) please send that.
>>
>> -ME
>>
>>
>> Todd Cary said:
>>> Eric -
>>>
>>> <<<
>>> Do you mean that when you're not root and run the terminal, it comes
>>> up
>>> without any prompt
>>>>>>
>>> Correct!  No prompt...just a white screen/window.
>>>
>>> This is RH 9.0.
>>>
>>> I did not notice this in the beginning since I set the default to KDE
>>> where everything runs fine...in fact, coming from Windows, I am very
>>> impressed.  Then one day I decided to "take a look at Gnome".  When I
>>> tried to bring up the Terminal window, there was no prompt (I thought
>>> it
>>> was a keyboard problem).  By going back to KDE and using the
>>> "gnome-terminal" command from it's terminal window I was able to gleen
>>> the information I have presented.
>>>
>>> Todd
>>>
>>> Eric Eisenhart wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 05:54:08AM -0700, Todd Cary wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> If I bring up the Gnome Terminal ("gnome-terminal") and I am root,
>>>>> all
>>>>> is well: I get the root prompt.  However, if I am not root, the
>>>>> terminal
>>>>> window comes up without the prompt.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Do you mean that when you're not root and run the terminal, it comes
>>>> up
>>>> without any prompt, or that it comes up with something different
>>>> than the
>>>> root prompt?  Does a terminal window appear at all?
>>>>
>>>> What Linux distribution are you using?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
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>>>
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