[PC-BSD Pbi-dev] ThinClientServer pbi

[Kris Moore]

Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 09:16:55AM -0400, Kris Moore wrote:
>> Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
>>> i tried this out (ThinClientServer 0.9-PV0), but didn't have very good luck
>>> with it. first with a PC-BSD 7.1-beta, and then with 7.1.
>>>
>>> on a dell latitude laptop (866MHz), X simply failed to configure- it would
>>> start up, i'd see the grey thatched X background, but no X cursor, and a black
>>> line at the top of the screen. i think it has an intel i810 video chipset.
>>>
>>> on a thin client (model linked below), X failed to recognize the USB keyboard
>>> and USB mouse, although the graphics came up fine.  
>>> http://www.disklessworkstations.com/cgi-bin/web/200104.html?id=hqRToh7q
>>>
>>> both the laptop and thin client worked fine without any configuration with
>>> ThinClientServer 0.8-PV0.
> ...snip...
>> The version of Xorg on 0.9 is Xorg 7.4, which does have some issues with  
>> keyboard / mouse detection. However you should be able to fix it by  
>> messing with / adding these options via the manual xorg setup.
>>
>> Section "ServerFlags"
>>         Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"
>>         Option "AllowEmptyInput" "Off"
>> EndSection
>>
>> We've had to add those flags to our default X config for PC-BSD 7.1, and  
>> I may need to add them to the default PXE client as well.
>>
>> On your intel video card, does switching between intel / vesa drivers  
>> make a difference?
>>
>> Also, I'm going to add these flags to ThinClientServer xorg here, and  
>> rebuild it as 0.9.1, and we'll see if that helps fix these issues.
> 
> with ThinClientServer 0.9.1 the laptop with the intel video (i810) gets a
> graphical display, though built-in keyboard and mouse fail to work. before X
> comes up, i actually see the console mouse cursor, so it's recognized at some
> level. just not once X starts.
> 
> using the X configuration options, with "Use failsafe VESA mode" it gets a
> black screen, and eventually fails to start. with "Run X auto-detection" it
> just sits at the console indefinitely.  if i select "Run X auto-detection" and
> then edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to include the ServerFlags options mentioned above
> and remove all references to Screen1, everything works (graphics, mouse and 
> keyboard).
> 
> with "Run xorgconfig for manual setup" it gives an error:
> 
>   xorgconfig: not found
>   Copied Xorg config.
>   [Press Enter to Continue]
> 
> the thin client from disklessworkstations works with "Use failsafe VESA mode",
> fails with "Run X auto-detection", but works when adding in the ServerFlags
> settings.
> 
> and on a related note, saving X configuration files doesn't actually work, as
> /mnt/xorg-config is a dead symlink to /usr/local/etc/pxeboot/xorg-config on the
> thin client.  i'm guessing keeping them outside of /home/pxeboot was intended
> to prevent configurations from getting removed upon upgrading ThinClientServer?
> 
> live well,
>   vagrant

Vagrant,

I'm in the middle of working on that 0.9.1 version right now, so its not 
quite ready for production as you saw :)

I'll hopefully have something ready by the end of the week. I'll let you 
know when its ready for full-blown testing.


-- 

Kris Moore
PC-BSD Software
http://www.pcbsd.com