startx client argument handling inconsistent
Submitted by cod..@..ndy.de
Assigned to Xorg Project Team
Link to original bug (#104910)
Description
startx handles client arguments without a specific client inconsistently when ~/.xinitrc exists.
Documented behaviour in the manpage for xinit when ~/.xinitrc
exists:
- a) According to the description "xinit -arg" results in running
~/.xinitrc -arg
- b) This conflicts with the third example (quote: "It will ignore .xinitrc.")
Observed xinit behaviour:
- Behaviour a) is used.
Documented startx behaviour in manpage
- If client arguments are given without a client, do the same as xinit.
- Use xinitrc if it exists and no client and no client arguments are given.
Intended behaviour from sourcecode ("compatibility reasons"):
- Use xinitrc if no client and no client arguments are given
- Use xterm as the client if only client arguments are given
- Otherwise use the given client with the given client arguments
Observed startx behaviour:
- "startx -arg"
-> results in "xinit xterm -arg -- ..."
-> results in
~/.xinitrc
with arguments $1=xterm, $2=-arg
I found two issues with this:
- "xterm" has to be resolved to an absolute path for xinit to work properly. This would restore the behaviour as intended in the code.
The problem can be fixed by setting --with-xterm to an absolute path during ./configure, but DEFAULT_XTERM should be a sane working value as well. Maybe "defaultclient" should be resolved with "which" or "whereis -b".
- What is the correct behaviour for startx?
- the way xinit works and is documented in the description
- the way xinit is described in the examples,
- the way startx was written including fix 1)?
I am using Arch Linux with xorg-xinit 1.3.4-4 ( ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-xinitdir=/etc/X11/xinit )