BTW, Just for grins I uncommented the exec wmaker line I had in my
home .xinitrc from when I tried it while back (and decided not to
use it along with all the other wms installed using Fink) and it
was not found. I had to put a /sw/bin/ in front of it. That path
is not known anymore to this machine's X11, yet is known to
Terminal on this machine. It would be nice to find the definitive
word as to how and when the paths are set. I've tried to find and
learn them all, but just when I think I understand it, even when
backed up by experiments, I run into a wall.
I'll take a stab at it -- apologies if I'm wrong:
On a 10.4 system,
* Logging in remotely (from ssh): ssh will run your login shell in
login mode -- by default, bash. bash will run /etc/profile, which
for most people will set their default path. (default is '/bin:/sbin:/
usr/bin:/usr/sbin')
/etc/profile will (by default) execute /etc/bashrc if it exists
bash will then execute ~/.bash_profile, if it exists.
* Running xterm with no arguments: xterm will start bash in
"interactive" (non-login) mode, which causes it to run only ~/.bashrc.
* Terminal.app: If you have the preference set to "Execute the
default login shell using /usr/bin/login", it will act like ssh
above. Otherwise, like xterm.
* X11.app will append "/usr/X11R6/bin" to your $PATH if you have one,
or set your path to "/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/
usr/X11R6/bin" if your path is currently empty (see below).
(This string is hardcoded in the X11.app binary; try running
"strings /Applications/Utilities/X11.app/Contents/MacOS/X11"
* X11.app will run ~/.xinitrc if it exists, or /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
if it doesn't. Either of these files might modify $PATH.
The one last wrinkle here is that X11.app's default path depends on
how you launch it.
* If you launch it by double-clicking the X11 icon in the Finder, it
will have an empty default path, so it will use the hardcoded default
path.
* If you launch it by running open-x11 xterm (or whatever) from
Terminal.app, it will start with whatever the PATH was set to in the
shell from which you launched it.
So, to recap, here are some scenarios and the files that will be
executed for each:
1. Double-click X11.app in Finder: PATH = "/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/
sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin"; execute ~/.xinitrc or /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc;
execute ~/.bashrc (or /etc/csh.cshrc and ~/.tcshrc or ~/.cshrc)
2. Launch Terminal.app with default prefs: execute /etc/profile, /etc/
bashrc, ~/.bash_profile (or /etc/csh.cshrc, /etc/csh.login, ~/.tcshrc
or ~/.cshrc, ~/.login)
3. Run 'open-x11 xterm' from Terminal.app: the sum of #1 and #2 above.
Ben Byer
CoreOS / BSD
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