[Xquartz-dev] MacPorts XQuartz 2.3.2 (xorg-server 1.4.2-apple32) has problems with $PATH

[Jeremy Huddleston]

On Feb 17, 2009, at 10:02, Peter Dyballa wrote:

>
> Am 17.02.2009 um 16:03 schrieb Martin Costabel:
>
>> In ~/.xinitrc (or in the scripts inside ~/.xinitrc.d/,
>> which is the currently recommended replacement for ~/.xinitrc), you  
>> get
>> an environment inherited directly from /usr/X11/bin/startx as  
>> started by
>> launchd.
>
> This is a well-know fact. Therefore I have created ~/.MacOSX/ 
> environment.plist.
>
>>
>> This is a minimalist environment that does not take into account  
>> *any*
>> shell startup scripts, and not even ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist.
>
> Why? The previous version in MacPorts worked OK, it inherited $PATH  
> and I could use AUCTeX. Carbon Emacsen or the Cocoa variant  
> Emacs.app of GNU Emacs 23.0.90 all inherit the correct environment  
> and are useful applications. Is X11.app no Mac OS X application?

Here's how X11.app starts on Tiger (or on Leopard if you aren't using  
the launchd start):

X11.app inherits its environment from environment.plist just like any  
other app launched by ApplicationServices.
   X11.app runs a shell script on startup that gets an environment  
from your login shell before launching the X11 binary.
     The X11 binary fork/execs startx
       startx fork/execs xinit
         xinit fork execs xinitrc and X
           X tells X11.app how to star the server (command line  
arguments passed over mach IPC)
           xinitrc runs your initial clients (like quartz-wm)

Thus xinitrc inherits your environment.plist on Tiger.

It doesn't on Leopard because it's started from launchd which doesn't  
use environment.plist on Leopard (known bug).