OT: logname?

["Christopher W. Aiken" <cwaiken@telerama.com>]

Slightly off topic.  There is a utility, /usr/bin/logname
that returns the "login name" of the user.  The problem is:

1)  in xterm, Eterm, kterm logname works OK
2)  in gnome-terminal and kconsol logname always returns
    "logname: no login name"

Why doesn't "logname" work correctly all of the time?

We have an application what depends on the "logname"
function to return the correct value.  If a user installs
Gnome or KDE the activity bar at the bottom has a "gnome-terminal"
or "kconsol" by default.  If they use those Icons to open up a
work space, logname will not work.  We shouldn't have to instruct
our customers to setup an xterm, Eterm, of kterm just so that the
logname function will work.

Any ideas?

--
Christopher W. Aiken, Scenery Hill, Pa, USA
chris at cwaiken dot com,   www.cwaiken.com
Current O/S: Debian GNU/Linux 2.2_r2