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From: brsmith@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Brian R. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Should login xterms show /etc/motd?
Keywords: xterm login
Message-ID: <1990Jul18.200754.13129@cs.umn.edu>
Date: 18 Jul 90 20:07:54 GMT
Sender: brsmith@cs.umn.edu (Brian R. Smith)
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis - CSCI Dept.
Lines: 20

During the normal login sequence, /bin/login will dump /etc/motd to
the terminal, say whether or not you have mail, then start up the
shell.  (Ok, I've omitted a couple details...)

But, when one of our novice users logs in through xdm and starts up a
login xterm, (s)he will never see /etc/motd.  (The default setup is a
single large login xterm, so even folks with x-phobia can make some
use of them as terminals...)

So, would it be reasonable to augment xterm (yet again) to dump
/etc/motd (among other things) into its window before starting a login
shell?  Anyone have a patch for it?

I've got a crude hack set up in /etc/.login (sourced before ~/.cshrc
and ~/.login) right now - if "WINDOWID" is set it cats /etc/motd.

Any better ideas?

Brian
brsmith@cs.umn.edu