[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: [Fwd: [Bug 53345] .bash_profile  script is not sourced]
From:       George <jirka () 5z ! com>
Date:       2004-02-26 23:09:26
Message-ID: 20040226230926.GE6783 () pipina ! 5z ! com
[Download RAW message or body]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 07:38:16PM +0100, Oswald Buddenhagen wrote:
> in a Perfect World (TM), all generic environment setup would be done by
> the login tool (*dm, login, su, rshd, etc.) in a shell-/session-
> agnostic way before those get control at all. a good start is pam_env,
> even though it needs to be extended (syntactically, and to read
> ~/.environment, not only /etc/environment). a shell's startup files
> would do only setup specific to that particular shell.

I think this is a reasonable long term expectation to have, have PAM do it.
On systems that don't trust pam yet there /etc/profile usually wipes the PATH
and such.  I think startup scripts are a kludge no matter what.  Sourcing
/etc/profile doesn't really hurt and gets you into the PATH situation that
the user will be when they start a login shell once in the graphical
environment.  It would be weird to get something different I suppose.

I think in the meantime it doesn't make much sense to keep changing Xsession
and the way it works.  Even if we achieve perfection with these scripts it's
not likely to be followed by every distributor out there, and the more
complex the setup is, the larger the chance that people will just ignore it.

Having had experience of trying to convince distributors to use one
particular script over another, it's an uphill battle because no one cares
all that much since "things just work the way they are".  Changing them
further doesn't help clear the waters.

I think energy would be best spent trying to push through changes in PAM to
"do the right thing" in terms of environment.  /etc/profile and friends will
stay around anyway since the only way a package can easily add to an
environment semi-portably on linux systems so far is to drop a script into
/etc/profile.d/.  Completely separating things from /etc/profile will just
make distributors source /etc/profile from /etc/xprofile and forget about it,
and no improvement will ever be made.

So my point is:  There is no need for a perfect solution.  The nice solution
(pam) will come along eventually.  We should strive for a "stable" solution
for now, that is: one that doesn't change all the time, that is the only one
that has a chance to (in time) become semi-standard on most installations.
Which I think the current solution does (modulo few minor icky points where
kludges are needed).  Any change now will take a few years really to get into
distributions (if at all) and then you will have different systems with
different startup scripts in the meantime.

I suppose a bit of kludge in some startup scripts (say startkde and similar)
is justified.  Given all the horrors of what a *DM has to do to make things
work in general, this type of kludge is pristine natural beauty anyway.

George

-- 
George <jirka@5z.com>
   It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
                       -- Albert Einstein
 
>> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]