ldm-server missing a dependency on xterm

[Tuomas Heino]

ltsp-server-standalone is described as "Complete LTSP server environment",
but the following:

sudo apt-get install ltsp-server-standalone
# do whatever config was needed here
sudo ltsp-build-client

results in the following when trying to log on:

Xsession: unable to start X session --- no "/home/user/.xsession" file, no
"/home/user/.Xsession" file, no session managers, no window managers, and no
terminal emulators found; aborting.

Choosing "failsafe session" results in:

Xsession: unable to launch "/usr/bin/xterm" X session --- "/usr/bin/xterm" not
found; falling back to default session.

Shouldn't ltsp-server-standalone depend on at least xterm, if not much more
x clients? It does depend on the transitional xbase-clients package,
which sounds like it may have depended on xterm in the past.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Oct 3 13:44:00 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: ltsp-server-standalone 5.1.88-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=fi_FI.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-11.36-server
SourcePackage: ltsp
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-11-server x86_64

[Stéphane Graber (stgraber)]

Hi, thanks for your bug report.
If I understand you correctly, you would like xterm to be added as a
dependency on the server-side package.

Although it's the most common use case, far from all of our users run
their desktop on the LTSP server.
For example, all my deployments have a LTSP server serving the LTSP
chroot, then LDM_SERVER is set to another server which runs the desktop
environment.

Adding that dependency would force the X libraries to get installed on a
server that may not need them at all.

[Tuomas Heino (iheino+ub)]

Either xterm dependency or a description that clearly says that dependency is not there.

Most of the instructions available either recommend the two commands I used and assume that ubuntu-desktop is installed, or recommend installing ubuntu-desktop and ltsp-server (without the -standalone part).
What I am saying that the combination of having a dependency on xbase-clients and not having a dependency on xterm doesn't seem to make sense at first glance, since doesn't xbase-clients already have the X library dependancies you mentioned?

Did I understand you correctly, in that ltsp-server-standalone is meant for other things besides being standalone as well? apt-get rdepends lists mythbuntu-diskless-server-standalone and ltsp-manager as the packages depending on ltsp-server-standalone

As a sidenote, I don't really want to follow those instructions that recommend installing ubuntu-desktop, since that would install all the X servers on a headless server.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

the -standalone part refers mainly to the dhcp setup (when we used to use nfs it also set up the nfs server which is not needed anymore with the switch to nbd) it means that the server can boot clients standalone without the additional need of dhcp tftp or nbd servers in your network (while ltsp-server only installs the core parts and doesnt set up anything, leaving everything to the admin to offer the biggest flexibility)

xbase-clients provides the scripts in /etc/X11/Xsession(.d) without which the LTSP display manager would not start on the clients ...

note that an ltsp environment *only* installs a boot environment for thin clients and a login manager, desktop sessions run by default on a central server. you will not have much fun without installing ubuntu-desktop (or any other desktop env) on one of the server machines in your network and at least pointing LDM_SERVER to it in your lts.conf. the server does not need to run X but you needs to have a desktop installed somewhere since this is the place your user sessions run from.

[Stéphane Graber (stgraber)]

A recommend will be added to ldm-server for xterm in Lucid.

[Stéphane Graber (stgraber)]

Pushed that fix to the packaging branch for ldm in Lucid.