Select X Server Layout at boot time

Ginko

Hi gentooer's,

I have a laptop which I sometimes connect to en external
monitor and use a different resolution than the LCD.

To do so, I setup Xfree with two different Server Layouts
which I can call with the -layout server option of the startx
command. This works OK.

My problem is that I'd like to specify the Server layout
at boot time and I do not use startx but have KDE started
automatically and no .xinitrc or similar on my $HOME.

Can you help :?:

Thanks in advance,
Gianluca

paramthegreat · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Aug 2002 Posts: 78

i am not a guru but i do not think that what you want to accomplish would be possible

. the only kind of parameters that you can pass when u boot are related to kernel configuration.

however u might be able to do something with the "init" parameters that can be passed on boot through grub. maybe u can write a script and point ur xserver to initialize based on an alternative XF86Config file.
maybe the following website might give u an idea: http://www.torque.net/scsi/SCSI-2.4-HOWTO/bparams.html

i know this is a bit farfetched but maybe it'll help,
happy hacking

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mglauche · Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2002 9:50 am Post subject:

you CAN add more information in grub .. mainly the runlevel

i never cerated my own runlevel, but it should be possible with that. you can start other scripts during startup, a quick hack would be to write 2 init.d scripts, one does cp XF86Config.normal XF86Config, other does cp XF86Config.laptop XF86Config, and start only one of these in each runlevel

Ginko · Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2002 9:19 am Post subject:

Hi,

I know how to select a different boot profile, this is
no problem (I append "prof=xyz" to the boot command and
look for it in /proc/cmdline from within local.start).
I already do it for changig network parameters depending whether
I am at home or office or wherever.

My question is how can I specify a different Xfree Server Layout
when starting X from boot (not manually which is trivial).
Copying a different XF86Config file would do but it's not
elegant and does not use the Server Layout feature which is there
for this purpose.

Thanks for your help,
Gianluca

mario

/etc/X11/xdm/Xservers for example

Ginko · Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2002 1:55 pm Post subject:

That's exactly.

Thanks a lot,
Gianluca

mksoft · l33t Joined: 28 May 2002 Posts: 844

You can add an additional aribtrary param to the kernel upon boot (via grub) and later in the script (e.g: Xservers) check for the value and use the desired layout.

The parameters passed to the kernel are available in /proc/cmdline and you can grep it for the value you want.
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