Version: (using KDE KDE 3.3.92) Installed from: Gentoo Packages OS: Linux Hi, a minor kdm annoyance is that before the background image is set (which takes some time on older systems), the default stippled black/white pattern is visible. Having a black root window until kdm is up and running would be waaaay better. The fix is easy: the option -br (for black root) should be passed to the X server. Just add this option to the lines in /usr/kde/3.4/share/config/kdm/Xservers fixes it. Example: :0 local@tty1 /usr/X11R6/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :1 local@tty2 reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :1 :2 local@tty3 reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :2 (If this configuration file is Gentoo specific and not present in vanilla KDE, feel free to close this as invalid or whatever.)
in principle i have nothing against this idea, but i'd like to know how portable the -br switch is ...
> in principle i have nothing against this idea, but i'd like to know how > portable the -br switch is ... IIRC it worked just fine with XFree (4.3) and it's also working with Xorg 6.8. I can't remember if I used it with Xorg 6.7, but I dont' think that it was taken out temporarily or something like that. I have no clue about XFree <4.3 or anything non-XFree/Xorg. Perhaps it could be integrated in 3.4 RC1? Thanks for considering this.
This is not a KDE specific issue. GDM does exactly the same thing. I opened a bug report for this earlier today where I said that apparently xfree used to be patched so that the default was a black background. Would this not be the sensible route to take rather than starting to add the -br switch to all login managers? I may be wrong but I can't see anyone actually wanting the current ugly background for any reason. Maybe I'll post this issue to the xorg people themselves to see what they think.
I seem to recall that there is some reason this background is used - doesn't it cross-hatch or do something strange if your monitor settings are wrong?
> I seem to recall that there is some reason this background is used - > doesn't it cross-hatch or do something strange if your monitor settings are > wrong? Sounds interesting, but I couldn't find any reference to this on the net. Link? I guess once kdm (or gdm, xdm...) is running you'd notice something's gone wrong anyway.
> I seem to recall that there is some reason this background is used - doesn't > it cross-hatch or do something strange if your monitor settings are wrong? Last time I heard, it was said that it is useful to sync the signal with some monitor model manufactured in 1939 (maybe not _exactly_ this way ;) See here, and the discussion following: http://lists.freedesktop.org/pipermail/xorg/2004-August/002043.html
Yes, I posted this an enhancement request to xorg. This is the reply I got; ------- Additional Comment #1 From ajax at nwnk dot net 2005-02-12 09:26 [reply] ------- pass the -br option to the server at startup. this has been debated on the mailing list several times, the decision has always been to leave it in because setting it black would prevent some monitors from syncing. ------- So I guess there's not much chance of the default behaviour being changed by them. I really don't know anything about how true this might be, but it does seem like a issue that wouldn't affect anything remotely modern. I'm only guessing though!
there is another reason ... this is sort of the simplest test screen possible. both black and white are poor indicators of correct functionality of the pixel data path.
Am Saturday 19 February 2005 20:41 schrieb Oswald Buddenhagen: > there is another reason ... this is sort of the simplest test screen possible. both black > and white are poor indicators of correct functionality of the pixel data path. Why stop half way then? Why not let the mouse cursor rotate to figure if the mouse cursor can be displayed at any place. On, and flash every possible color on the screen to test if the monitor can display any of it. And perhaps we should also do a full memory check and a fsck on KDE startup to make sure everything works. That sounds like a good plan.
done for kde 3.5. i defined that free unixes have recent x servers, so we can use this option on them. :)