i3 fails to launch with xf86OpenConsole: Cannot open virtual console 1 (Permission denied) using the intel driver

[dcermak]

I'm submitting a…

[x] Bug
[ ] Feature Request
[ ] Documentation Request
[ ] Other (Please describe in detail)

Current Behavior

i3 fails to launch when started via startx on openSUSE Tumbleweed as a regular user from a tty:

$ WINDOWMANAGER=/usr/bin/i3 startx

xf86OpenConsole: Cannot open virtual console 1 (Permission denied)

This has been confirmed by at least two users (see: https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2019-11/msg00125.html and https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2019-11/msg00139.html) with the additional catch that it occurs only when using the Intel modesetting driver. I have a laptop that also has a Nvidia graphics card and when switching to the Nvidia card, i3 launches as expected.

This used to work previously (for me until about a week ago).

Expected Behavior

i3 should launch via startx.

Reproduction Instructions

• grab a openSUSE Tumbleweed machine
• install i3 (zypper in i3 xinit)
• log in to a tty and run WINDOWMANAGER=/usr/bin/i3 startx

Note, the above might not work fail when using the proprietary Nvidia driver (it works for me then, but fails with intels modesetting driver).

Environment

Output of i3 --moreversion 2>&-:

Binary i3 version:  4.17.1 (2019-08-30) © 2009 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
Running i3 version: 4.17.1 (2019-08-30) (pid 8889)abort…)
Loaded i3 config: /home/dan/.config/i3/config (Last modified: Mon 11 Nov 2019 01:21:22 AM CET, 55050 seconds ago)

The i3 binary you just called: /usr/bin/i3
The i3 binary you are running: i3

• Linux Distribution & Version: openSUSE Tumbleweed, snapshot 20191109
• Are you using a compositor (e.g., xcompmgr or compton): no

[i3bot]

I don’t see a link to logs.i3wm.org. Did you follow https://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html? (In case you actually provided a link to a logfile, please ignore me.)

[Airblader]

Does it work for similar window managers like awesome or Openbox?

[mrmazda]

Mailing list thread https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2019-11/msg00125.html produced much follow-up after this report was filed.

I was unable to reproduce this on a TW20191109 installation running an NVidia GF119 (NVS310) [10de:107d] with the modesetting DDX.

I was unable to reproduce on TW20191109 with awesome and openbox on Intel Kaby Lake GT2 with modesetting DDX.

I was able to reproduce with i3 on Intel Kaby Lake GT2 with modesetting DDX only before installing awesome and openbox, which installed as follows:
tail3.txt

[Airblader]

@stapelberg I think you know more about these things (I know next to nothing about them). I assume if this is an i3 issue at all, it's either the automake setup or how it's packaged.

@mrmazda Can you check whether the i3 package on openSUSE does anything out of the ordinary like pass specific flags or apply patches etc.?

[mrmazda]

Such are not things I know how I would do. All I did was install and 'DISPLAYMANAGER=/usr/bin/[i3,awesome,openbox] startx' to see whether or not I could reproduce the error. I had to Ctrl-Alt-BS to escape because I couldn't figure out how to make anything happen, such as get an xterm to open or find a menu to open. I'm primarily a KDE3/TDE user used to using menus to open apps. I could try if someone explained how.

[dcermak]

I'm not the maintainer of i3 in openSUSE, but it appears not to do anything non-standard at all. It is built via %configure; make, where the %configure macro expands to:

  CFLAGS="${CFLAGS:--O2 -g -m64 -fmessage-length=0 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fstack-protector -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables}" ; export CFLAGS ;
  CXXFLAGS="${CXXFLAGS:--O2 -g -m64 -fmessage-length=0 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fstack-protector -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables}" ; export CXXFLAGS ;
  FFLAGS="${FFLAGS:--O2 -g -m64 -fmessage-length=0 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fstack-protector -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables }" ; export FFLAGS ;
  FCFLAGS="${FCFLAGS:--O2 -g -m64 -fmessage-length=0 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fstack-protector -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables }" ; export FCFLAGS ;
  LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS:-}" ; export LDFLAGS ;
  ./configure --host=x86_64-suse-linux-gnu --build=x86_64-suse-linux-gnu \
	--program-prefix= \
	--disable-dependency-tracking \
	--prefix=/usr \
	--exec-prefix=/usr \
	--bindir=/usr/bin \
	--sbindir=/usr/sbin \
	--sysconfdir=/etc \
	--datadir=/usr/share \
	--includedir=/usr/include \
	--libdir=/usr/lib64 \
	--libexecdir=/usr/lib \
	--localstatedir=/var \
	--sharedstatedir=/var/lib \
	--mandir=/usr/share/man \
	--infodir=/usr/share/info \
	--disable-dependency-tracking

There is a single patch to the i3 package, but it only changes the desktop file (which isn't used in this case anyway).

[stapelberg]

The error message is from startx. What makes you think this is i3-specific?

Can you try using a login manager such as lightdm, gdm, etc. please? startx is not a typical way of starting an X session for many years at this point :)

[dcermak]

I have tried it from lightdm and there i3 launches immediately. via startx you need two attempts: the first consistently fails and the second succeeds consistently (with the Nvidia driver the first one succeeds consistently)