Re: Various starting X problems

[Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>]

Harold,

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Harold L Hunt II wrote:

> Igor,
>
> Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> > On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Harold L Hunt II wrote (irrelevant parts snipped):
> >
> >>Phil Betts wrote:
> >>
> >>>Luke said:
> >>>
> >>>>>In my .xinitrc I *don't* have an explicit path for xterm.  However, I
> >>>>>see xterm has moved from /usr/X11R6/bin to /usr/bin!  Did many other
> >>>
> >>>Slightly OT: I noticed that the start menu entry for xterm no longer
> >>>works.  Entering the command from the shortcut directly into the cmd.exe
> >>>shell returns without an error or any output (that I can find).  From
> >>>bash, the command works fine.  The other shortcuts that I've tried
> >>>(e.g.. xcalc) all worked, so there is presumably something unusual about
> >>>the way that xterm starts that causes a silent exit when started from a
> >>>vanilla DOS/Windows shell.  My guess is that it's relying on some env
> >>>var.
> >>
> >>I'm aware of this.  I don't remember the exact details, but there is a
> >>sort of Catch-22 situation for setting the "start in" folder for the
> >>xterm shortcut; neither '/usr/bin' nor '/usr/X11R6/bin' work for
> >>different reasons.  Furthermore, I believe that the script that creates
> >>the shortcuts needs to be modified to be able to support shortcuts to
> >>programs that live in /usr/bin.  You'll notice that the emacs shortcut
> >>also does not work for the same reason.
> >
> > I don't recall any discussion or a heads-up that xterm now resides in
> > /usr/bin...  Any particular reason for this decision?
>
> It wasn't a change... the "xterm" package has always been this way since
> its inception a couple weeks ago.

It was a change from the users' point of view.  Their xterm used to be in
/usr/X11R6/bin, and now it's in /usr/bin all of a sudden.  The fact that
it also moved into a separate package is incidental.

> Chris and I discussed on cygwin-apps that there was no reason to put new
> X packages in /usr/X11R6 so I have not been doing this for most new X
> packages; barring those that do broken things and need to be stuck in
> /usr/X11R6, like libXft.

For new packages -- sure, but moving something as fundamental as xterm is
not something to be taken lightly.

There *is* a reason to put X11 binaries (and especially libraries) in the
same directory.  The reason is Windows dynamic linking.  By default,
Windows apps look for DLLs in the current directory before looking in the
PATH.  So, for apps that are in /usr/X11R6/bin, all the X DLLs are found
automatically.  Once xterm moves into /usr/bin, either all the DLLs it
requires should also move there, or /usr/X11R6/bin should be *added* to
the PATH (it wasn't required before).

Also, moving xterm to /usr/bin breaks all sorts of existing scripts (those
that hardcode the path to it as /usr/X11R6/bin, because it's not usually
in the Windows PATH by default).  At the very least there should have been
an announcement declaring in large friendly letters that xterm won't work
anymore unless you (a) change all your scripts that expect to find it in
/usr/X11R6/bin, and (b) add /usr/X11R6/bin to your Windows system path,
otherwise the necessary DLLs won't be found.

Frankly, I think that moving 1 app to /usr/bin doesn't solve the problem,
it only creates more.  If you want to be rid of /usr/X11R6/bin, first move
all the libraries to /usr/bin, and then move all the apps in one fell
swoop.  Until then, you'll only be causing users unnecessary anguish'.
Just my 2c.
	Igor
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