Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!brchh104!brchs1!bnr.ca!rice.edu!sun-spots-request From: andrewr@ucs.adelaide.edu.au (Andrew Rutherford) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Re: cannot start cmdtool on NCD X-terminal under SunOS 4.1 Keywords: No Digest Subjects in Unmoderated Mode Message-ID: <3732@brchh104.bnr.ca> Date: 5 Jun 91 14:17:00 GMT Sender: news@brchh104.bnr.ca Organization: Sunspots, Pseudo-Unmoderated Lines: 42 Approved: sun-spots@rice.edu X-Original-Date: 4 Jun 91 22:52:05 GMT In article <2922@brchh104.bnr.ca> sitongia@hao.ucar.edu (Leonard Sitongia) writes: >I've been using an NCD X-19 terminal with xdm from MIT X11R4 displaying a >cmdtool from OpenWindows 2.0 served from a Sun-4/280 running SunOS 4.0.3 for >some time. It is simply exec'd from the .openwin-menu. [ ... Some stuff deleted ... ] >The failing cmdtool appears normal, in that it opens ok, and echos input, >but will not execute input. > >In any case, when the cmdtool is started up, the xdm-errors reports: > >ttysw-TIOCSPGRP: Interrupted system call I think we need this stuck in an FAQ. It's the kind of problem that people ask in newsgroups they don't often have time to read :-( Anyway, the answer to your question is to invoke the cmdtool as setsid cmdtool <> The reason for this is that cmdtool does some funny stuff with process groups, and falls in a heap if it's not invoked from a terminal. Usually, this is OK as the process can trace it's ancestry back to a login session on the console. Xdm, however, divests itself of controlling terminals, and cmdtool fails. There are three ways around this: - Start cmdtool up from another login (as you've discovered) - Start cmdtool up as "setsid cmdtool" - Use xterm. Personally, I prefer the latter, as then I can use my cursor keys in tcsh and have scroll bars at the same time. Hope this helps, Andrew. -- Andrew Rutherford andrewr@ucs.adelaide.edu.au +61 8 228 5661 Real Programmers always confuse Christmas and Room 1069, Adelaide Uni Halloween because OCT 31 == DEC 25 !