Re: X and /etc/profile (joint)

[Dave Sherohman <esper@usinternet.com>]

Taupter said:
> When I log in my system using a console terminal my aliases, locales
> sets and variables (stored in /etc/profile) work fine. I start X and
> they're still valid till I log out. When I boot my system with runlevel
> 2 (starts xdm) and use xdm to log in, these prefferences doesn't work
> anymore. How could I log in using xdm and use my /etc/profile
> definitions correctly in a clean way?

There are two possibilities for what you mean here, since you didn't specify
the context within X where you're having this problem:

1)  (Not that likely, but included for completeness)  If you're having
problems with, say, a menu item or other clickable doodad not knowing your
path, there's nothing I can suggest other than adding the full path - these
things shouldn't be dependent on the environment anyhow.

2)  (What I suspect is the case)  If your environment isn't being read by
xterms (or Eterms/rxvts/whatever term you prefer), you need to pass the
appropriate parameter to the term to tell it to start a "login shell".  Then,
when the term starts a shell, the shell will behave as if you'd just logged
in (my best guess for why it's called a "login shell") and read profiles,
etc.  Check the manpage to find out what option triggers a login shell.
(It's -ls for xterm.)