Re: XDM can't shutdown
On Wed, Nov 26, 2003 at 08:04:42PM -0800, Marc Wilson wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 03:19:49AM +0000, ben_foley@web.de wrote:
> > use "update-alternatives --config x-window-manager" to get to a menu that
> > will allow you to select between what you've got available. then use
> > startx to fire it up.
>
> No, no, NO. The alternatives system is not intended to facilitate a *user*
> choosing a particular application binary, it is intended to provide a
> mechanism for several application binaries to perform the same role
> interchangeably. At a *system* level. Policy defines the operation of
> that alternative, and the scoring method necessary to provide a sane and
> safe default.
>
> Messing with the alternative is of questionable benefit, even if the
> machine is single user, and is usually of zero educational benefit as it's
> a complete Debian-ism.
>
> Further, the idea of Debian's X startup even paying the slightest bit of
> attention to the alternative depends on a number of variables, including
> but not limited to whether or not the user has provided any sort of
> .xinitrc or .xsession file in $HOME.
>
> If the user wants anything at all to launch at startup, any other X client,
> he's going to have to write an .xinitrc/.xsession, and the alternative is
> going to get *ignored*. His X session will start up, and just as nicely
> shut down again because there's no client launching to hold it up.
>
> Please, please, PLEASE... if you're going to tell people how to mess with
> X, at least educate them PROPERLY. If you want a particular X client or
> set of X clients to launch when X starts (and yes, the window manager is
> just another X client, albeit one with a specific role), then write a
> proper .xsession or .xinitrc and let things work the way they're intended
> to.
>
> How people hit on the esoteric method of modifying the alternative, which
> requires that you be root, versus a simple user-level configuration (which
> makes the alternative utterly irrelevant) is something I'll never
> understand. I even met someone once who insisted the way to do things was
> to set the alternative, then use 'exec x-window-manager' in .xinitrc...
>
> --
>
jeez, relax. we're not all competing here. "i even met someone once...."
what a shock his perspective must have been to you. at least, in this
case, nobody is insisting that _the_ way is.... oops, no, that's not
true, is it? you are, aren't you? so update-alternatives was developed
with nobler intents than my meagre employment of it--big deal. on this
single user system, it works, hasn't broken anything, and if you really
are interested in understanding how "people hit on the esoteric method,"
i'm sure that the mail archives might spit up the first mention of it,
which was a while back and not the only one up to now.
ben
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