Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!pa.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!lemans.dec.com!lemans.det.dec.com!libove From: libove@libove.det.dec.com (Jay Vassos-Libove) Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec Subject: Re: whither .login with Xprompter/dxsession on DS5000 Message-ID: Date: 1 Feb 91 16:33:44 GMT References: <34338@fmsrl7.UUCP> Sender: news@lemans.dec.com Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Detroit Ultrix Resource Center Lines: 25 In-reply-to: moss@cs.umass.edu's message of 30 Jan 91 20:50:13 GMT I believe that this thread is relevant to something I tracked down in the source code a while back... When a user logs in to a unix system the shell that gets started up is usually a "login" shell, which is very closely defined by how it is started up. It turns out that it is not possible to get a shell to be a "login" shell _underneath_ the X Session Manager under the Ultrix Worksystem Software and therefore have all applications inherit a path, environment variables, etc. The way dxterm's shells get the environment is by forcing the shells to think that they are login shells (which can be done) but this still leaves the window manager, x session manager, and any other application started from window manager or session manager menus without the user's login environment. If anyone is truly interested, I will go back to the sources and dig out the reasons why you can't make the session manager's parent shell a login shell. It has something to do with the way the /usr/bin/login program exec's the x session manager. This is, by the way, generic to unix - not just an ultrix issue. -- Jay Vassos-Libove libove@libove.det.dec.com Digital Equipment Corporation decwrl!libove.det.dec.com!libove Detroit ACT/Ultrix Resource Center Opinions? They're mine, mine, all mine! Farmington Hills, Michigan and D.E.C. Can't have 'em!