Hi, As requested [1] a separate thread for suggesting improvements to xinit, in order to solve some of the issues people have been having since the release of 1.3.4-1 [2].
1. Handling of empty .startxwinrc Given the new behaviour of startxwin having an empty is never a correct configuration. It would be really nice if startxwin could check for a zero length .startxwinrc and in that case just start the X server without any programs, as it used to do in 1.3.2-1. This would solve a problem reported several times [3, 4] and also solve the problem of having an icon on the task bar for 'sleep inf' [5]. 2. Adding a hint about 'sleep inf' to the FAQ Not everyone reads the release notes, most people, when running into problems will read the FAQ first. How about adding an entry similar to this one: Q: startxwin exits immediately on start-up without error A: ~/.startxwinrc must be executable and block or else X server will exist, adding a 'sleep inf' to the end of the file should help, also see [2] 3. Adding 'listen' option to the FAQ Consider adding something similar: Q: X server is no longer accepting client connections, how come? A: For security reasons, by default the X server no longer listen for tcp connections, if you really want this add '-listen' to the start-up parameters. Also see [6]. 4. Semantic versioning Signalling major changes in the version number makes it a lot easier to find the problem, at least for me. Semantic versioning [7] suggest does thing. Practically this would have mend calling the latest release 2.0.0-1 rather than 1.3.4-1. No additional effort required, but a clear signal to people to read the release notes. I hope these suggestions don't require too much work. I think they would have a significant positive impact on UX. Laurens [1] https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2015-01/msg00012.html [2] https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2014-11/msg00029.html [3] https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2014-12/msg00012.html [4] https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2014-12/msg00013.html [5] https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2014-12/msg00059.html [6] https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2015-01/msg00013.html [7] http://semver.org/ -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://x.cygwin.com/docs/ FAQ: http://x.cygwin.com/docs/faq/