Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!icsib6!stolcke
From: stolcke@icsib6.berkeley.edu (Andreas Stolcke)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Why does every xterm create an entry in /usr/utmp?
Message-ID: <16851@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 5 Sep 89 21:08:01 GMT
References: <3472@blake.acs.washington.edu> <8909051759.AA11810@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: stolcke@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Andreas Stolcke)
Organization: International Computer Science Institute & U.C. Berkeley
Lines: 22

In article <8909051759.AA11810@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU> MAP@LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael A. Patton) writes:
>"bug".  The original "bug" was that the reported idle time for a user
>was usually wildly wrong.  The supposed "fix", causing all xterms to
>show up in a finger or who so that one will show no idle time, is
>worse because it makes it hard to determine what really is going on.

As with many problems there is probably no single person (or program) to blame.
Part of the trouble could probably have been avoided if the people who
did 'finger' some decades(?) ago had foreseen the advent of windowing
workstations with the typical hundrets of 'logins' per user.

Anyway, for the 'Sprite' operating system currently being developed here at
Berkeley someone just hacked 'finger' to display just the login with the least
idle time (unless you indicate that you want the whole story by specifying
a suitable option). Looks like a sensible solution to me.

Andreas

----
Andreas Stolcke
International Computer Science Institute	stolcke@icsi.Berkeley.EDU
1957 Center St., Suite 600, Berkeley, CA 94704	(415) 642-4274 ext. 126