On 12Aug2010 01:28, Nobody <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote: | On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:08:59 +1000, Cameron Simpson wrote: | > The reason .bashrc gets overused for envars, aside from ignorance and | > propagated bad habits, is that in a GUI desktop the setup sequence is | > often a bit backwards. A conventional terminal/console login means you | > get a login shell that sources your .{bash_}profile. And from there one | > would start a GUI and all the .profile stuff has been run Once, as it | > should be. But when the login itself is a GUI the various terminals get | > started _before_ the .profile stuff gets sourced, because the terminal | > is started by the desktop manager. Once common "fix" for this is to | > make all new terminals run login shells. Ugh, but it does work. | | Er, not really. If you don't source your ~/.profile (etc) from e.g. | ~/.xsession, GUI applications don't get to see the environment settings | therein. The environment isn't just for shells.
I think we're in violent agreement here. I arrange to do exactly that in my own desktop setups. However, the ones that ship with distros generally don't, possibly because a shell-aborting error in the .profile (or unwanted interaction etc) will abort the GUI login/desktop-setup. Cheers, -- Cameron Simpson <c...@zip.com.au> DoD#743 http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/ The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator. - Macaulay, History of England -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list