Re: X11 article, for review (take 2)
Re: X11 article, for review (take 2)
- Subject: Re: X11 article, for review (take 2)
- From: Rich Morin <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 17:02:37 -0800
At 2:46 PM -0600 3/31/03, Randy Ford wrote:
It really doesn't matter if X11.app is stopped and restarted, as long
as Terminal.app is kept running. All other Terminal instances
created from the app will inherit the environment with which
Terminal.app was started. Normally, X11.app will start with the same
DISPLAY, even if one is switching from one monitor to two, etc.
(This isn't necessarily the same with other X servers. With them, if
one has two monitors, it is likely that they will be configured with
different DISPLAYs. Since your article isn't addressing them, there
is no need to discuss them. A person set up that way will probably
understand how to deal with that.)
Hmmm. I had a peculiar problem show up in this regard. I started up
X11, did a "ssh -X cfcl", killed off and restarted X11, and then tried
to run an X command on cfcl. It complained and I had to exit and
restart the ssh session.
The important part is that DISPLAY gets set appropriately by the
X11.app. It assumes that the user wants programs that have both
text-based and X11 based display methods (such as emacs) will be
displayed using X11.
One problem with setting DISPLAY in startup scripts is that it will
cause many problems that are time consuming to troubleshoot. ...
Point taken.
What I see as the better alternative is for the user to xterm or some
other X11 terminal if they want to use X. Use Terminal.app if they
don't want to use X. If you search this group, you will find methods
of configuring xterm to look and feel much more like Terminal. This
includes the key strokes for things like cut and paste. The only
thing that I have found lacking is the ability to drag a file onto
the xterm and have the fully-qualified file name pasted into the
xterm.
This is a non-starter for me. Trying to convince xterm to act like
Terminal, including cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop, and scrollbars, is
not going to be easy, reliable, or robust in the face of Apple's new
versions of Terminal. If someone just wants to run occasional X11
apps, they shouldn't have to buy into xterm in the process.
That said, I do wish I had a better way to deal with the DISPLAY issue.
I certainly don't want to lead the reader into a tarpit. Sigh...
-r
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