[2921] in Athena Bugs
asymmetry in new dot file design
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Beth Anderson (Consulting Manager))
Fri Aug 18 00:15:58 1989
To: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 89 00:15:37 EDT
From: Beth Anderson (Consulting Manager) <beth@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Summary: Just as we provide a .startup.tty and .startup.x
shouldn't we provide a .logout.tty and .logout.x.
==============================================================================
The longer story:
I've logged in using the vanilla xlogin -- just username and password;
no extra options. When I use the LOGOUT button and confirm that I
want to log out, I'm not logged out. Instead, a message appears in my
console window
Xsession returned a non-zero status
select "non standard" session
then select the SYSTEM
option to ignore your .xsession file
and a dialog box appears asking me whether I want to abort
XLOGIN ERROR: aborting
session existed with non-zero status
--------
| abort |
---------
(It doesn't matter whether I click on abort, because if I don't
xlogin times out -- i.e., effectively chooses it for me -- and
logs me out.)
The reason the LOGOUT button fails with the vanilla xlogin
is that I have a tty-based command in my .logout file:
clear
At least 4 other staff members were getting this error -- for the
same reason -- and spent lots of time, individually, trying to figure
it out. Users with .logout files which contain tty-based commands
will each be at least as confused.
While we can document the problem and a solution for users, they
probably won't read about it until they've already spent time trying
to figure it out. And, while a user can insert conditional code in
his .logout file which checks his XSESSION before executing any
tty-based commands, wouldn't the right way to do this be to have
the new dotfile system use a .logout.tty and .logout.x?
