LXDE 2010 Won't retain an autologin. (RESOLVED, with thanks)

[BJF]

Neal:
Do You Have #1: No.
Do You Have #2: No.
Do You Have #3: No. There is only Parcellite.

I looked in PCC>Configure> and Autologin was enabled. I un-auto-ed it. It changed /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf to false and nobody. I put the words back, went out and in, no autologging and PCC>Configure>Autolog was reset. They are talking to each other!

[Neal ManBear]

Try this:
In PCC > Boot > Set up autologin and disable autologin there. Reboot. At the login screen, click on Configure and set up autologin through GDMSetup. Login. Wait for a bit -- play some solitaire or something to pass some time. Reboot.

(I can't recreate this problem. But we will keep trying to find a solution.)

[BJF]

Yep. Did that. Left the box to sit, and loaded the dishwasher. Returned and went out/came back. No autolog. Checked PCC>Autolog (it was checked as me), and also /etc/x11/gdm/custom.conf which has the usual boxes ticked and has sprouted the "greeter" word about 4 blank lines down.  ???Bigtime!!

[Neal ManBear]

At this point, I don't know what to try next. Maybe install KDM and autologin, switch to KDM, and set up autologin in PCC. Maybe it would work.

[BJF]

OK. I will have to wait a day or two to get my next allocation of bandwidth for downloads. I've eaten all my last issue and some. Think Third World and overpriced supply down this neck o' the woods.
Meanwhile, some step-by-step on what to get, how much it will alter my existing tight little 8Gb SD Full  install, and apart from my sheer bloody-mindedness is it worth it as we might never find out what it is that's snotting LXDE just to get me a selfish autolog I shouldn't by rights be using anyway. I wanna play some more. What about you?

[wedgetail]

Neal

Would you mind just having a look here, since it seems we can get some help with using Login changes, I make a long shot that perhaps you can give us some idea of where to find a solution.

http://pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,77410.0.html

Rather intriguing but I am running out of ideas and not thinking straight either.   

[CaptainSarcastic]

Just curious - did you ever try setting the delayed autologin to see if that works?

[BJF]

No.... But if you don't mind a walk-through for me, I'll give it a go.

(signed) Inexperienced-But-Learning-Quickly, aka BJF 

[Neal ManBear]

BJF,
With the limited space and bandwidth you have and the "Executable kdm_greet PID Signal: 8 (Floating point exception)" problem , switching to KDM might not be a good idea.

Open GDMSetup, look at the other options below Automatic Login and test changes to see if one of the options works for you.

[BJF]

Captain Sarcastic: Sorry, but in light of subsequent events my reply must have seemed like a p*** take. Sorry if I gave offense, but I genuinely hadn't explored any variations on log-in out of a misplaced fear of killing something important at a crucial time in this experiment. I'd thought it would be some sort of intuition test. It wasn't.

Neal: Captain Sarcastic is right. I took the chance to play with stuff as suggested and top of the list was the time delay idea. I enabled the delay and set it at 10 seconds. Rebooted, it counted down and logged "Me" on automagically. I noted that it revisits the log-in screen on shut-down, and that the timer started counting again briefly before it cuts to The Lonely Bull, so when I got a repeat autolog I set the delay to 5 seconds. This took me straight to my desktop with no countdown, but the following boot went back to 10 seconds and counting. Seems the lowest acceptable delay is set at that level. So I then played games with themes and Avio, PCLXDE and Mandriva autolog after the count-down. I went back to PCLXDE.
Sooo, Whatever it does, a time delay of as little as 5 seconds will make my machine with my set-up Autolog when no other discovered intervention will. Might I suggest that your magic wand set a minimum time-out of 5 seconds (maybe even less might still work?) if Autolog is enabled and offer a longer interval as a user choice in LXDE? Might it be possible to create a wee script in Synaptic that will apply the change if a user has the same problem I had, and wants resolution. I am happy to now have a choice of a working autolog or a password entry.

Captain Sarcastic, Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Neal. For service above and beyond, thank you too. I look forward to trying Blue Moon and reporting, and won't mark this thread "SOLVED" just yet. But I've got an Autolog, Hee Hee Hee! 

[Neal ManBear]

Perhaps, rather than [Solved], you could mark this thread as [Resolved]. I'm sure you will see the difference between the two.

This still bothers me. Setting Automatic login should be simple and straightforward. That it isn't on your system is a puzzle.

[CaptainSarcastic]

I'm just glad that it worked and I was able to be of some help.

[vc]

Perhaps, rather than [Solved], you could mark this thread as [Resolved]. I'm sure you will see the difference between the two.

Yes; I remember that one...

At any rate however, I too have been encountering this same difficulty, but with a different setup.  I'm running Hootiegibbon's RAW 2012 edition with E17 on an SDHC card in an Asus 701SD EeePC.  I've installed this same system onto 4GB SanDisk Ultra II cards previously, and they've all performed fine - autologin (set up in the usual manner, through the PCC) functioned normally, the system itself was responsive, and I could clone the system from one such card to another of the same reliably.

Eventually though, that 4GB size became uncomfortably small so I bought some larger cards: an 8GB Kingston, some 16GB Patriots, and some 32GB Dane-Elec cards.  I attempted to transfer the working 4GB system to these cards by first cloning the existing 4GB card to them with dd and then resizing the too-small partition in the PCC afterwards.  This was generally successful, but the autologin wouldn't survive and the transferred system ran slowly with huge lags in response (10-15 seconds, at times.).  Then I noticed that the existing partition on one of the brand-new Dane-Elec cards was a FAT32 LBA partition that began on sector 8192, so I repartitioned my test card again to a standard 4GB ext3 partition that also began on sector 8192, and with the remainder of the card being assigned to a new primary ext3 /home partition.  A subsequent re-install into this new partitioning scheme is now performing satisfactorily and responsively, yet autologin still does not function as it did previously with the 4GB SanDisk card installs on the same machine and from the same installational CD-R disc.

This still bothers me. Setting Automatic login should be simple and straightforward. That it isn't on your system is a puzzle.

It's bothering me too, which is why I decided to post.  I don't know if this will be of any help in this particular matter, but it is my observation.  For now, I am simply using CaptainSarcastic's work-around until such time as the autologin issue may be properly resolved.

Thank-you, and good luck.

[Neal ManBear]

vc,     
This thread is about LXDE and autologin. As you are using RAW, it might have been better to start your own thread.     
Any road, your problem(s) may be from the cards. Kingston puts hidden partitions/hidden files on their stuff. Those files interfere with non-MS type filesystems. The others may do this, too. The solution is to create a new partition table. (I use gparted.) This will give you a clean card to create your ext3 partition on.     
After creating your new partition table, your card may appear to have become unusable. If this happens, be sure it is unmounted, exit gparted and remove it. Let it rest for a bit. Reinsert it, restart gparted. Format it. If it still can't be formatted, create a new partition table (yes, again). Try again to format. -- repeat the exit/remove, if needed.