Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!bloom-beacon!EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU!jim
From: jim@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Jim Fulton)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: xinit lacks init in it (Summary)
Message-ID: <8808311656.AA07475@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 31 Aug 88 16:56:44 GMT
References: <641@kaon.uchicago.edu>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: X Consortium, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Lines: 19


> I'm glad to hear that this is a matter of concern to others as well.

This is actually one of the highest priorities of vendors of intergrated user
interfaces.  I don't think anybody gets the warm fuzzies from xinit, and
we certainly encourage people to build (and give back :-) better ways of
controlling one's environment.  Nobody has ever accused the public release
of being acceptable for end users.


> But it looks like a real init program will have to be contrib'ed.

What you are describing is typically called a "session manager" in Xspeak, and
is definitely the direction in which things are moving.  Many of the major
vendors already have similar things under development, and everyone agrees that
it would be nice to have at least a simple session manager in the public
release some day. 

Xinit is a lot like "ed".  It's works, and it's there; but, most people only
use it under duress, when nothing "better" is available.