openSUSE and “Bullet-Proof-X”
September 27, 2007 around 7am (openSUSE)A discussion on #kde-devel reminded me of Bullet-Proof-X. As usual, there’s been a lot of hype from our friends in the Ubuntu camp over the Bullet-Proof-X feature which really, as Benji notes, utilises an existing feature in GDM; basically a failsafe mode, should X fail to start.
There must, however, be some light irony in reading the extensive proposal and then taking a look on the factory mailing list to read:
> > Ubuntu's "bulletproofX" is mostly hype as they're just utilising an > > existing functionality of GDM, but it would be nice to have the same > > functionality. > > So in order to "test and integrate", you'd first have to implement the same > functionality in a way suitable for openSUSE. Volunteers anyone? It was oneliner. Wed Sep 5 17:45:26 CEST 2007 - sbrabec@xxxxxxx - Search for SaX2 in XKeepsCrashing. Just done.
Though, it’s like this mainly because openSUSE has had the wonderful SaX2 for many years now, with all types of X11 configurations (even xinerama, tablet PCs, etc) in a nice way. Perhaps it’s a bigger achievement however since Ubuntu had to create a new X11 configuration tool themselves, which is really just a GTK port of KDE Guidance.
Congratulations to both camps for implementing this, anyhow. This type of perspective on computing for new users is something that’s really needed in free software. Hopefully KDM can implement a similar hook soon, as well.
Powered by FireStats
Bullet-Proof-X is probably hyped, from a technical perspective, but it is what the average Joe expects, he does not want to see a black screen should something go wrong. And honestly me too, event though I can fix X conf myself, I simply do not have the time anymore.
So kudos to Ubuntu to bring this simple and fundamental issue to the attention of our nerdish community and let’s all forget xorg.conf files as we forgot the line numbers in front of the statement of our early basic programs.
/Nicola
Yes, but note that it was the GDM developers that brought about such a thing (by creating the hook). If anything it’s them that should get credit for the idea. Because, as you can see above, if you have a graphical display configuration tool it’s merely a one-line-edit.
Of course I do agree it’s a great feature too.