Subject: Raspberry Pi: lightdm does not start an X session

From: Ian Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2025 16:25:12 +0100

Brand new (second attempt) 3.22 install:

Server startup confirmed by eye, or creation of an Xorg.log file.

X starts the server.
startx starts the XFCE desktop.
Lightdm does not (OpenRC says it is running, supervised).

Weird.

This guy also found the problem, but his solution did not WFM.

https://superuser.com/questions/1768522/lightdm-starts-but-nothing-happens

Any ideas?

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From: Ian Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2025 09:17:22 +0100

OK, no idea why it worked as a _regular_ user without any effort, but I
got it working using the usual goat slaughtering methods (add XF86 fbdev
package, add an xorg.conf snippet, and add a usercfg.txt).

---

From: Liam Proven <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2025 16:15:06 +0100

On 25/06/2025 09:17, Ian Smith wrote:
> I

I don't know what you mean by this. Can you unpack that a little?

I tried to get Xfce on Alpine on a Pi and I failed totally. Never so 
much as an X cursor.

Someone told me to copy the settings from Raspbian, but the thing is, 
current Raspian does not use X.org any more. It uses Wayland. :-(

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From: Ian Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2025 11:28:59 +0100

Hi Liam ;)

Firstly, did you know that you can switch to X11 on PiOS using
raspi-config?

Back to the main thing, Alpine works fine on RPi 3 & 4.  It is only PI5
and Pi500 that I had issues with.  These were mostly display issues.

1) X will not work without adding a snippet something like:

$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-vc4.conf 
Section "OutputClass"
  Identifier "vc4"
  MatchDriver "vc4"
  Driver "modesetting"
  Option "PrimaryGPU" "true"
EndSection

2) You will also need to add a driver:

$ doas apk add xf86-video-fbdev

3) Make sure you are using "full KMS" in /boot/usercfg.txt

4) There is also an issue where OpenRC messages are not displayed on 5
& 500 - add console=tty1 to /boot/cmdline.txt.

If any of thsi is unclear let me know.

Cheers,

Ian.

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From: Liam Proven <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2025 11:35:35 +0100

> Hi Liam ;)

Hi! :-)

> Firstly, did you know that you can switch to X11 on PiOS using

I did. I have, however, had some difficulty getting this to actually
work. I have repeatedly toggled the setting without success.

This was soon after the release of PiOS 5, though.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/03/raspberry_pi_os_5/

> and Pi500 that I had issues with.  These were mostly display issues.

Aha. It was a Pi 5 CM in the official IO board I was trying.
> If any of thsi is unclear let me know.

Thank you very much. I will try again but I am not sure when I will
have the time.

I asked about it back in March:

«

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Liam Proven <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2025 at 13:28
Subject: X.org on Raspberry Pi 5
To: <~alpine/[email-masked]>

»

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