[Nix-dev] Problem booting the new nixos kernel

[Marco Maggesi]

On Apr 30, 2009, at 5:38 PM, Tony White wrote:

> 2009/4/30 Marco Maggesi <maggesi at math.unifi.it>:
>>
>> Thank you Lluís and Tony for yours suggestions.
>>
>>
>> On Apr 29, 2009, at 11:13 PM, Tony White wrote:
>>
>>>> Hi Marco,
>>>
>>> if it's not in there already, try adding something like this to your
>>> xserver config in configuration.nix along with your existing  
>>> settings
>>> :
>>
>>
>> Sorry, I didn't mention that, but my favorite resolution is already
>> specified in the configuration.nix (and it worked fine so far).  My
>> xserver configuration is as follows:
>>
>>    xserver = {
>>      enable = true;
>>      exportConfiguration = true;
>>      videoDriver = "vesa";
>>      sessionType = "";
>>      windowManager = "none";
>>      sessionStarter = "";
>>      resolutions =
>>        [ { x=1440; y=900; } { x=1152; y=864; } { x=1024; y=768; }  
>> { x=800;
>> y=600; } ];
>>      extraMonitorSettings = ''
>>        Modeline "1440x900" 106.5000 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 903 909  
>> 934
>> +HSync -VSync
>>      '';
>>    };
>>
>> I suspect that all my problems are related to this error (found in  
>> X.0.log):
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>> (II) Loader running on linux
>> (++) using VT number 7
>>
>>
>> Fatal server error:
>> xf86OpenConsole: Cannot open virtual console 7 (No such file or  
>> directory)
>>
>> (WW) xf86CloseConsole: KDSETMODE failed: Bad file descriptor
>> (WW) xf86CloseConsole: VT_GETMODE failed: Bad file descriptor
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> But I don't understand which file is actually missing.
>> In /dev I see all the tty* files as usual.
>>
>> Marco
>
> Hi Marco,
> If you look in /etc/nixos/nixos/system/options.nix you will see  
> something like :
>
>    extraTTYs = mkOption {
>      default = [];
>      example = [8 9];
>      description = "
>        Tty (virtual console) devices, in addition to the consoles on
>        which mingetty and syslogd run, that must be initialised.
>        Only useful if you have some program that you want to run on
>        some fixed console.  For example, the NixOS installation CD
>        opens the manual in a web browser on console 7, so it sets
>        <option>boot.extraTTYs</option> to <literal>[7]</literal>.
>      ";
>    };
>
> You can use that data to create an entry in configuration.nix that
> starts tty7 every
> time you boot.
> I guess that could work but you'll need to test.
>
> Hope that works,
>
> Tony



I tryed but I can't see any change.  More precisely:
I put the following in my configuration.nix

  boot = {
     grubDevice = "/dev/sda";
     initrd = { extraKernelModules = [  "ata_piix" "fuse" ]; };
     kernelModules = [  ];
     extraTTYs = [7 8];
   };

Then I rebuilded and rebooted the system, but the xserver still
gives the same error as before:

   Fatal server error:
   xf86OpenConsole: Cannot open virtual console 7 (No such file or  
directory)

Also, I do not know if this is significant, but if I press Alt-F7
I get a dark screen and if I run the command

   initctl list 2>&1 | grep tty

I can see the services stared for tty1 to tty6 but not for tty7.

Marco