Hello Community! I am looking for some assistance setting up an x.org configuration. I do not need a desktop environment. The goal is to setup something similar to kiosk mode…in that the goal is to: on boot, auto login as user X, use user X’s .xinitrc to launch my_app (which is a GUI application & primary function of the system)
I started with Rocky Linux-9.1 minimal installation and have been adding packages as I need. I am now at the point of installing and setting up xorg, but I am getting hung up on installing a windows manager. I wanted to go with something simple and familiar like twm, but I cannot figure out how to get it installed on Rocky Linux.
On second thought, I probably don’t even need a window manager as my_app should run full screen and not be moveable. Looks like I still need help with x configuration though. If I try to: startx
or startx my_app, x does not start.
If I run: X -configure
I get the error that: No devices to configure
in the list of video drivers I do not see anything for the on board Intel graphics, I take this to mean there are not any xorg-intel drivers installed because if I search for the intel kernel module it is there. I search as follows: lspci -nn | grep -i vga
output:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Elkhart Lake [UHD Graphics Gen11 16EU] [8086:4555] (rev 01)
Hhmm. I know what I’m trying to do can work. If instead of installing Rocky Linux Minimal, If I select “Workstation” and install GNOME desktop and all the other bells and whistles, I can launch my_app and it executes just fine. I am trying to install from the minimal direction However and am having a hard time tracking down what the “Workstation” installation is installing and configuring that I am not. I have followed few tutorials on setting up and configuring X, but of course the tutorials and wikis are always slightly different.
Will keep searching and update post as I find solutions
The Workstation environment group does pull in some groups:
# dnf -q group info workstation
Environment Group: Workstation
Description: Workstation is a user-friendly desktop system for laptops and PCs.
Mandatory Groups:
Common NetworkManager submodules
Core
Fonts
GNOME
Guest Desktop Agents
Hardware Support
Internet Browser
Multimedia
Printing Client
Standard
Workstation product core
base-x
Optional Groups:
Backup Client
GNOME Applications
Headless Management
Internet Applications
Office Suite and Productivity
Remote Desktop Clients
Smart Card Support
The base-x group should pull in the X11 components:
# dnf -q group info base-x
Group: base-x
Description: Local X.org display server
Mandatory Packages:
glx-utils
mesa-dri-drivers
plymouth-system-theme
xorg-x11-drv-evdev
xorg-x11-drv-fbdev
xorg-x11-drv-libinput
xorg-x11-drv-vmware
xorg-x11-drv-wacom
xorg-x11-server-Xorg
xorg-x11-utils
xorg-x11-xauth
xorg-x11-xinit
xorg-x11-xinit-session
I do tend to install the “Minimal Install” environment. Then I add the following groups, if machine will have GNOME or MATE desktop environment:
Core
Fonts
internet-browser
Multimedia
print-client
Standard
base-x
(And naturally groups/packages for GNOME or MATE, as desired.)
Just recapping a little and adding some output. Steps so far:
Run Live USB Rocky Linux-9.1 installation.
Select Minimal from Left Software selection.
Select standard from Right software selection tab. Along with a couple extra tools like rpm & development tools
on first login: dnf group isntall base-x
dnf install dbus
dnf install “xorg-drv”
dnf update
from here, if I: startx, X fails to start.
output from lshw -c display:
X.Org X Server 1.20.11
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: 5.4.188-104.359.amzn2.x86_64
Current Operating System: Linux unknown00045f44274c.home 5.14.0-162.18.1.el9_1.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Mar 1 22:02:24 UTC 2023 x86_64
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=(hd1,gpt2)/vmlinuz-5.14.0-162.18.1.el9_1.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/rl-root ro crashkernel=1G-4G:192M,4G-64G:256M,64G-:512M resume=/dev/mapper/rl-swap rd.lvm.lv=rl/root rd.lvm.lv=rl/swap acpi=off rhgb quiet
Build Date: 29 July 2022 12:00:00AM
Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.20.11-11.el9
Current version of pixman: 0.40.0
Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Mon Mar 27 13:03:59 2023
List of video drivers:
vmware
modesetting
fbdev
No devices to configure. Configuration failed.
(EE) Server terminated with error (2). Closing log file.
I have a somewhat dated page on getting X after a minimal install. While written around the time of RHEL6, it should still be fairly valiid. Minimal Desktop on RedHat based systems.
Hey thanks for the link. Unfortunately, Followed along and at the point it was declared “Now you should have an X environment” I still do not :(. I am still working to resolve the issue and will update as I go. I am currently laboring under the impression that i am just missing some package that “workstation” group installs that I am missing. that is a 350+ package diff though…
Ok, progress. not what I had in mind but not bad; maybe someone can fill in the details for me(?). I finally got startx to init an xsession after I installed gdm. Not exactly what I wanted as I see it also installed gnome-desktop (it is the gnome display manager so I guess…). I tried just going with lightdm but the results of startx ./myapp were the same, bumpkis
I can mark this thread solved, but it would be nice if someone could comment on an alternative to installing gdm (there are a lot of dependencies that get installed by gong this route)
One more page of mine might do it. This one is fairly recent, about using RHEL9. (I’m going to have to go back to the old page when I have time and see what is missing.)
https://srobb.net/rhel9.html
Enable the crb repo and epel-release first.
I made a few cosmetic updates to the first link I gave, but that was mostly things like changing yum to dnf. I’ll have to put in a VM and see what was missing.
I did some playing around, and I think the problem is that you first have to install a window manager, such as openbox, then add as the last line of $HOME/.xinit exec openbox-session
Replacing openbox-session with your window manager of choice.