Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
On Saturday 16 September 2006 01:03, Kevin Mark wrote: On Fri, Sep 15, 2006 at 11:52:51AM -0400, Ian D. Leroux wrote: On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 09:03:23 -0500, Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 09/15/2006 07:50 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: I'm having a strange (to me) problem where xterms launched by the window manager are clearly ignoring my Xresources settings. To be precise: 1) Xterms launched via menu entry or via hard-coded commands in the window manager have default settings (small fixed font, white-on black) irrespective of the contents of ~/.Xresources. Xterms launched by hand (either from other xterms or from a window-manager- supplied command line like ratpoison's C-t !) obey all .Xresources settings, as expected. If I launch a second window manager from the first, the second window manager behaves correctly, i.e. the problem only appears for the first window manager to be launched. [...] What are those hard-coded commands you're talking about? That's important because terminal emulators recognize their resources based upon their names. So if you define resources for XTerm (note the capitals), but you start the program as xterm, it won't work. The suspect behaviour is exhibited even if the command name is the same: the fluxbox menu (auto-generated by Debian's menu package, which should be the same as the one for aewm, ratpoison, etc) has an entry that runs the command xterm, which does not pick up the resources. Running the textually identical command xterm from a shell starts up a terminal with the resources correctly loaded. Incidentally, my understanding of the X resources is that class names are always capitalized (first letter for most programs, first two letters if the name starts with X), and that is certainly the behaviour I have seen on other systems. As I note above, it works fine for programs launched by other means. are you saying that 'clicking' the 'xterm' menu option doesn't work correctly, while issuing 'xterm' on an alredy existing term does work? If so, I'd look for the specific command that the 'menu' option invokes. Beyond that, I'd suspect that the command is not being issued in a way to use your environment settings. That did indeed turn out to be the problem (c.f. previous subthread). I was misled by Debian's very consistent patching of software to use the alternatives mechanism and by various stupid mistakes made when I was too tired. ps. as someone who know little about the *bsds, I'd be curious to know what difference you notice and what prompted you to use Debian. :-) I'd rather not get into a full-fledged discussion on the subject. They're both great systems as far as I can tell. Ironically, I made a very early (for me) attempt to install Debian some five years ago. It didn't work out (hardware issues and newbie cluelessness on my part), FreeBSD was the first Unix I got really working on my desktop, and I've been running it and/or NetBSD for the last five years. It has served me well, taught me much, and I like it. I'm trying Debian now for hardware reasons, because I've heard very good things about its rigidity and predictability of policy and its sound engineering, and because I have less time now for maintaining and tweaking my computer system to my liking. I haven't been using it long enough to judge whether that was a good call (though so far so good). Also, have you checked out Debian's bsd ports? Not really. I get the impression they're less mature, and right now maturity and lack of surprises is high on my list of priorities (I have a lot of non-computer-related work to do these days). The other reason is that I have the feeling that most of these efforts are based on the premise that you want the *BSD kernel without the rest of BSD. Maybe it's because Linux vs. BSD flame wars often seem to get down to my kernel scales better than yours arguments. In any case, I don't buy that. BSD is a whole system, not just a kernel, and there's a lot to like about the rest of the system. To give one, relatively trivial, example, I happen to like the BSD license better than the GPL. I'm not saying it's better in any absolute sense, and I understand and respect the opposing point of view, but that's my preference. Putting a BSD kernel into an otherwise GPL system does nothing to address that. Maybe the best answer is this: the only way to find out whether the grass is greener on the other side is to go and chew it for a while. That's what I'm doing. You're welcome to do the same. Maybe you'll stick to BSD, maybe you'll decide that Debian was right for you all along. Oh, the best Debian/FreeBSD comparison I've seen is this one: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc/msg/248a7f1d3ecfdb0c?hl=en; It's written by a BSD guy, but it convinced me to give Debian another try. Hope
Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What are those hard-coded commands you're talking about? That's important because terminal emulators recognize their resources based upon their names. So if you define resources for XTerm (note the capitals), but you start the program as xterm, it won't work. no (see the X manpage's discussion of resources). -- Thomas E. Dickey http://invisible-island.net ftp://invisible-island.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
Ian Daniel Leroux [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Putting a BSD kernel into an otherwise GPL system does nothing to address that. To be fair, Debian is not a GPL system, it's a free software system (with a specific definition of free software independent of the GPL). They happily package BSD-licensed software (which most free-software people, including the FSF and Debian, consider free). -Miles -- = (^o^; (())) *This is the cute octopus virus, please copy it into your sig so it can spread. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
On 09/15/2006 07:50 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: I'm having a strange (to me) problem where xterms launched by the window manager are clearly ignoring my Xresources settings. To be precise: 1) Xterms launched via menu entry or via hard-coded commands in the window manager have default settings (small fixed font, white-on black) irrespective of the contents of ~/.Xresources. Xterms launched by hand (either from other xterms or from a window-manager-supplied command line like ratpoison's C-t !) obey all .Xresources settings, as expected. If I launch a second window manager from the first, the second window manager behaves correctly, i.e. the problem only appears for the first window manager to be launched. [...] What are those hard-coded commands you're talking about? That's important because terminal emulators recognize their resources based upon their names. So if you define resources for XTerm (note the capitals), but you start the program as xterm, it won't work. Try defining resources for xterm, and see if that works. Or you can create a symbolic link: ln -s /usr/bin/xterm ~/bin/XTerm This assumes that $HOME/bin exists and is in the path. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 09:03:23 -0500, Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 09/15/2006 07:50 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: I'm having a strange (to me) problem where xterms launched by the window manager are clearly ignoring my Xresources settings. To be precise: 1) Xterms launched via menu entry or via hard-coded commands in the window manager have default settings (small fixed font, white-on black) irrespective of the contents of ~/.Xresources. Xterms launched by hand (either from other xterms or from a window-manager- supplied command line like ratpoison's C-t !) obey all .Xresources settings, as expected. If I launch a second window manager from the first, the second window manager behaves correctly, i.e. the problem only appears for the first window manager to be launched. [...] What are those hard-coded commands you're talking about? That's important because terminal emulators recognize their resources based upon their names. So if you define resources for XTerm (note the capitals), but you start the program as xterm, it won't work. The suspect behaviour is exhibited even if the command name is the same: the fluxbox menu (auto-generated by Debian's menu package, which should be the same as the one for aewm, ratpoison, etc) has an entry that runs the command xterm, which does not pick up the resources. Running the textually identical command xterm from a shell starts up a terminal with the resources correctly loaded. Incidentally, my understanding of the X resources is that class names are always capitalized (first letter for most programs, first two letters if the name starts with X), and that is certainly the behaviour I have seen on other systems. As I note above, it works fine for programs launched by other means. Ian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
On 09/15/2006 10:52 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 09:03:23 -0500, Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 09/15/2006 07:50 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: I'm having a strange (to me) problem where xterms launched by the window manager are clearly ignoring my Xresources settings. To be precise: 1) Xterms launched via menu entry or via hard-coded commands in the window manager have default settings (small fixed font, white-on black) irrespective of the contents of ~/.Xresources. Xterms launched by hand (either from other xterms or from a window-manager- supplied command line like ratpoison's C-t !) obey all .Xresources settings, as expected. If I launch a second window manager from the first, the second window manager behaves correctly, i.e. the problem only appears for the first window manager to be launched. [...] What are those hard-coded commands you're talking about? That's important because terminal emulators recognize their resources based upon their names. So if you define resources for XTerm (note the capitals), but you start the program as xterm, it won't work. The suspect behaviour is exhibited even if the command name is the same: the fluxbox menu (auto-generated by Debian's menu package, which should be the same as the one for aewm, ratpoison, etc) has an entry that runs the command xterm, which does not pick up the resources. Running the textually identical command xterm from a shell starts up a terminal with the resources correctly loaded. Incidentally, my understanding of the X resources is that class names are always capitalized (first letter for most programs, first two letters if the name starts with X), and that is certainly the behaviour I have seen on other systems. As I note above, it works fine for programs launched by other means. Ian Do a ps x to see what the command lines are for those terminals opened by the menu button. Maybe the menu button is launching the terminals with parameters that override the Xresources. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 12:27:24 -0500, Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 09/15/2006 10:52 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 09:03:23 -0500, Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 09/15/2006 07:50 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: I'm having a strange (to me) problem where xterms launched by the window manager are clearly ignoring my Xresources settings. To be precise: 1) Xterms launched via menu entry or via hard-coded commands in the window manager have default settings (small fixed font, white- on black) irrespective of the contents of ~/.Xresources. Xterms launched by hand (either from other xterms or from a window-manager- supplied command line like ratpoison's C-t !) obey all .Xresources settings, as expected. If I launch a second window manager from the first, the second window manager behaves correctly, i.e. the problem only appears for the first window manager to be launched. [...] What are those hard-coded commands you're talking about? That's important because terminal emulators recognize their resources based upon their names. So if you define resources for XTerm (note the capitals), but you start the program as xterm, it won't work. The suspect behaviour is exhibited even if the command name is the same: the fluxbox menu (auto-generated by Debian's menu package, which should be the same as the one for aewm, ratpoison, etc) has an entry that runs the command xterm, which does not pick up the resources. Running the textually identical command xterm from a shell starts up a terminal with the resources correctly loaded. Incidentally, my understanding of the X resources is that class names are always capitalized (first letter for most programs, first two letters if the name starts with X), and that is certainly the behaviour I have seen on other systems. As I note above, it works fine for programs launched by other means. Do a ps x to see what the command lines are for those terminals opened by the menu button. Maybe the menu button is launching the terminals with parameters that override the Xresources. Thanks for the tip. I don't have access to the box just now, but I'll run the test as soon as I get back tonight and report results. Cheers, Ian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 12:27:24 -0500, Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 09/15/2006 10:52 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 09:03:23 -0500, Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 09/15/2006 07:50 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: I'm having a strange (to me) problem where xterms launched by the window manager are clearly ignoring my Xresources settings. To be precise: 1) Xterms launched via menu entry or via hard-coded commands in the window manager have default settings (small fixed font, white- on black) irrespective of the contents of ~/.Xresources. Xterms launched by hand (either from other xterms or from a window-manager- supplied command line like ratpoison's C-t !) obey all .Xresources settings, as expected. If I launch a second window manager from the first, the second window manager behaves correctly, i.e. the problem only appears for the first window manager to be launched. [...] What are those hard-coded commands you're talking about? That's important because terminal emulators recognize their resources based upon their names. So if you define resources for XTerm (note the capitals), but you start the program as xterm, it won't work. The suspect behaviour is exhibited even if the command name is the same: the fluxbox menu (auto-generated by Debian's menu package, which should be the same as the one for aewm, ratpoison, etc) has an entry that runs the command xterm, which does not pick up the resources. Running the textually identical command xterm from a shell starts up a terminal with the resources correctly loaded. Incidentally, my understanding of the X resources is that class names are always capitalized (first letter for most programs, first two letters if the name starts with X), and that is certainly the behaviour I have seen on other systems. As I note above, it works fine for programs launched by other means. Do a ps x to see what the command lines are for those terminals opened by the menu button. Maybe the menu button is launching the terminals with parameters that override the Xresources. That did the trick. It turns out that the debian-packaged versions of all of these window managers have been configured and/or patched to use the alternatives mechanism (should have thought of that), i.e. they invoke x-terminal-emulator. By default this launches the uxterm wrapper instead of just xterm, which sets the X -class option to UXTerm, so that XTerm resources are not recognized. As you can tell from that explanation, some of the claims I made above had to have been false; I must remember not to debug X issues when I'm short on sleep and to take better notes. Thanks for being patient with my newbie arrogance and gentle with the clue stick. Ian Leroux -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: window manager not picking up Xresources?
On Fri, Sep 15, 2006 at 11:52:51AM -0400, Ian D. Leroux wrote: On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 09:03:23 -0500, Mumia W. [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 09/15/2006 07:50 AM, Ian D. Leroux wrote: I'm having a strange (to me) problem where xterms launched by the window manager are clearly ignoring my Xresources settings. To be precise: 1) Xterms launched via menu entry or via hard-coded commands in the window manager have default settings (small fixed font, white-on black) irrespective of the contents of ~/.Xresources. Xterms launched by hand (either from other xterms or from a window-manager- supplied command line like ratpoison's C-t !) obey all .Xresources settings, as expected. If I launch a second window manager from the first, the second window manager behaves correctly, i.e. the problem only appears for the first window manager to be launched. [...] What are those hard-coded commands you're talking about? That's important because terminal emulators recognize their resources based upon their names. So if you define resources for XTerm (note the capitals), but you start the program as xterm, it won't work. The suspect behaviour is exhibited even if the command name is the same: the fluxbox menu (auto-generated by Debian's menu package, which should be the same as the one for aewm, ratpoison, etc) has an entry that runs the command xterm, which does not pick up the resources. Running the textually identical command xterm from a shell starts up a terminal with the resources correctly loaded. Incidentally, my understanding of the X resources is that class names are always capitalized (first letter for most programs, first two letters if the name starts with X), and that is certainly the behaviour I have seen on other systems. As I note above, it works fine for programs launched by other means. Hi Ian, are you saying that 'clicking' the 'xterm' menu option doesn't work correctly, while issuing 'xterm' on an alredy existing term does work? If so, I'd look for the specific command that the 'menu' option invokes. Beyond that, I'd suspect that the command is not being issued in a way to use your environment settings. Cheers, Kev ps. as someone who know little about the *bsds, I'd be curious to know what difference you notice and what prompted you to use Debian. :-) Also, have you checked out Debian's bsd ports? -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | debian.home.pipeline.com | | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
