[15923] in Athena Bugs
Re: sgi 8.1.16: /etc/athena/login/Xsession
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Craig Fields)
Mon May 4 15:59:19 1998
Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 15:59:10 -0400
From: Craig Fields <cfields@MIT.EDU>
To: kcr@MIT.EDU
Cc: tbelton@MIT.EDU, bugs@MIT.EDU, rbasch@MIT.EDU
> /mit/kcr/.desktop_indy and /mit/kcr/.desktop-steve-dallas got created.
.desktop-steve-dallas should disappear when you log out.
> It should've noticed that I have a .xsession file and _completely_
> overidden the SGI stuff. Or at least provide me with something I
> can create in my home directory (.skip_sgi_no_really_i_mean_it?)
> that lets me override the SGI stuff. I would prefer not to have my
> home directory eaten block by block by things created by the system
> dotfiles.
The problem with completely overriding the SGI stuff is that I'm not
sure of the impacts of that on various SGI software that you may run
that depends on storing preferences in those directories. I believe
they generally chose to store software preferences in a subdir of your
homedir rather than creating a new dotfile in the top level for every
program. So providing that option really makes sense only for people
who are certain they will never run an SGI program that wants to store
defaults that way.
The cost if this is essentially a directory and a couple of
subdirectories in your homedir. I'm not sure what you mean by being
eaten block by block though. The choice of the Xsession file for
making sure these directories existed was motivated by the need to
clean up after them when the user logs out.
SGI likes to create a prefs directory or symlink on a per-machine
basis, which doesn't exactly scale in our environment. So Xsession
creates a link for the local machine to .desktop_indy, and then
removes it when the user logs out, so that in general you have one
.desktop* directory, not one for every SGI you ever logged in to.
So that's why skip_sgi doesn't help - the code do populate these
directories has to live elsewhere (and before .environment is run).
Anyway, offering an option to create a dotfile to prevent the creation
of a directory and a couple of subfiles would be possible. But I don't
know if it's worth it, if only because it only changes the amount of
cruft in your directory by a constant factor. :) But also again, there
are various SGI programs you might run, even if you skip_sgi, that
might break.
Craig
