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From: hadley@ics.uci.edu (T.S. Hadley)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Can X die with no fuss?
Summary: 98% no fuss.
Message-ID: <20042@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 24 Jul 89 21:11:30 GMT
References: <8907240829.AA03112@sunaus.sun.oz>
Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu
Reply-To: T.S. Hadley <hadley@icarus.ics.uci.edu>
Organization: University of California, Irvine - Dept of ICS
Lines: 59

In article <8907240829.AA03112@sunaus.sun.oz> swoodhead@SUN.COM (Simon Woodhead) writes:
>Our site runs a net of Suns (mainly 3/50's) and I like to use both
>SunView and X at different times. The Problem is that while SunView
>can be killed with no problem, X doesnt seem to have a shut-down 
>option, and when the relevant processes are killed, it tends to do
>*strange* things to the workstation. Does any know of any graceful
>way of terminating X without re-booting?
>regards...
>                                           (void *) Chris();
   
   Here's a method I use to get a quiet, peaceful death from X and
   a usable keyboard afterwards:

      1). I alias my xinit to "xinit .xstartup ; kbd_mode -a".
   
   kbd_mode was described in previous follow-up. Makes sure keyboard
   isn't left in weird state.
   .xstartup is my shell script to start up various windows.

      2). My shell script ".xstartup" is structured thus:

   #!/bin/sh
   (
      xterm &
      xterm &
      ..
      exec xterm -C -n "CONSOLE" 
   ) 2>/dev/null 1>/dev/null

   The stdout & stderr are piped to /dev/null so that when Xsun dies 
   (my 3rd point) no needless error messages are seen.
   (No doubt, sh/unix wizards can find a better way to do this..)

   NOTE: You should make sure everything in the shell script works
   correctly before you discard the output or you will never know
   why a particular X application didn't start.

   One disadvantage is that you won't get any error messages from window
   manager spawned processes that would normally show up in your
   xterm -C shell.


      3). When I want to exit X I explicitly send a "kill -INT"
      to the `Xsun' process number. I have a shell script
      called `killbyname' which kills processes by name 
      (by `awk'ing the ps output), so:
	 "killbyname -INT Xsun".
   

   98 times out of 100 (more or less) when I exit X it works correctly: 
   X applications quietly terminate and, shortly, I get my prompt back
   ready for SunView or X. Once in a while something goes wrong
   and weird things happen (as you described) but not often.

   Disclaimer:
      
      Sure its a kludge, but at least it exits as nicely as SunView.
--
Tedd Hadley (hadley@ics.uci.edu)