[Xquartz-dev] 2.3.2_rc5 quitting and restarting

Harald Hanche-Olsen hanche at math.ntnu.no
Wed Dec 31 09:36:10 PST 2008


+ Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa at Freenet.DE>:

>
> Am 31.12.2008 um 16:00 schrieb Martin Costabel:
>
>> "Don't Run Any X Clients From ~/.xinitrc, or you are in deep 
>> trouble".
>
>
> What is the difference between launching X clients from ~/.xinitrc 
> and launching them from /usr/X11/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc? And why is 
> there a difference? Is it something good for?

I can make a guess ...

+ Martin Costabel <costabel at wanadoo.fr>:

> John Koren wrote:
>>> Don't do that.  Do this:
>>>
>>> cd ~
>>> /sw/bin/rxvt -tcw &
>>> . /usr/X11/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc
>
> This doesn't change anything. I observe the same behavior as John.

... and my guess is this: With the above method, rxvt may well be in 
the process of starting up while 
/usr/X11/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/10-fontdir.sh is running and messing 
about with fontpath settings behind rxvt's back. This sort of thing 
just might be a source of trouble. Other bits of setup, such as 
loading .Xresources, may also cause trouble when you start X clients 
this way.

So the advice should be to not have a .xinitrc at all, but instead do

mkdir ~/.xinitrc.d
echo '/sw/bin/rxvt -tcw &' > ~/.xinitrc.d/rxvt.sh
chmod +x ~/.xinitrc.d/rxvt.sh

and restart X11.

- Harald


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