On 25Jun2008 19:08, Daniel B. Thurman
<dant@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Looks like the parent is related to gdm-binary?
> Strange about my comment previously - hit 'reset'
:D
> Wonder what is going on with Xsession and why it
died.
>
> This is what I found:
> ===================
> root 3704 0.0 0.1 18416 2096 ?
Ss Jun24 0:00 /usr/sbin/gdm-binary -nodaemon
> root 3797 0.0 0.0 17896 2064 ?
S Jun24 0:00 \_ /usr/sbin/gdm-binary -nodaemon
> root 3801 2.4 2.2 63512 47528 tty7
Ss+ Jun24 40:15 \_ /usr/bin/X :0 -br -audit 0 -auth
/var/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7
> dant 3854 0.0 0.1 33768 4104 ?
Ssl Jun24 0:01 \_ /usr/bin/gnome-session
> dant 3902 0.0 0.0 0 0 ?
Z Jun24 0:00 \_ [Xsession] <defunct>
> dant 3956 0.0 0.0 6328 252 ?
Ss Jun24 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch
--exit-with-session /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients
[...]
Ok, this mean gnome-session forked a run of
Xsession and didn't wait for
it. Xsession has exited, but whatever gnome-session
really waits for
(typically the window manager) has not yet exited.
This is really common in xsession/xinitrc type
shell scripts. You see
people write their sessions like this:
xterm &
xclock &
window-manager
So, that is a shell script. It kicks off a
terminal, a clock and a
window manager. It waits for that last. When the
window manager exits
(usually from the quit/logout menu item), the session
ends, and gdm/xdm
kills the X server and starts a new server for a new
login prompt.
Now.. if the terminal or clock exit, they will be
zombies. The script is
may be waiting only for the window manager, expecially
if the last line
goes:
exec window-manager
because the window manager will _replace_ the
script, and thus be the
parent of the terminal and clock, but it will not be
waiting for them.
It is normally desirable to run "tools" (the
terminal, the clock,
nautilus etc) as children of a throw away subshell,
thus:
( xterm &
xclock &
)
exec window manager
That way the tools are forked off from a subshell,
the subshell exits,
and the children get inherited by init (_not_ the top
shell!) whose
purpose in life is to catch such children and reap
them, to prevent them
becoming zombies.
So:
- it is really a problem in gnome-session
- it isn't important, and is not related to your
resource problems
