[13944] in Athena Bugs
Re: which console is started by SGI?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (cfields@MIT.EDU)
Mon Oct 23 22:05:39 1995
From: cfields@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 95 22:05:30 -0400
To: wdc@MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@MIT.EDU
> I am VERY SURE that it was not doing this because of something
> I left on my screen the last time I logged in to an SGI
> (or anywhere else).
Actually, believe it or not, it is!
Basically, in the 0.X release, the console program
(/etc/athena/console) does not know enough to not place a WM_COMMAND
property on its window. Therefore, 4Dwm, since the console program
always exists when you log out, attempts to start it when you next log
in. But since there's no path in the console's WM_COMMAND property, it
just tries to execute it out of your search path. Now, since almost
noone in the universe has another program called "console" in their
search path, 4Dwm fails silently to execute anything by that name.
Meanwhile, the correct console is already running, so the net effect
is that everything works out all right.
So, because you had a console window when you were using the SGI and
logged out, 4Dwm attempted and succeeded in starting the console
program in your path. Surprise!
But this is a known bug and already fixed in 8.0. (The initial xterm
and dash both have code to either destroy or not create the WM_COMMAND
property already; zwgc already didn't, 'cause it's that kind of a
program.)
You are the second to report such a problem. The first was someone at
SIPB on Opus, as Yoav had been doing andrew work on that machine. :)
console still is and always has been effectively hardcoded to
/etc/athena/console.
Craig
