On Sunday 17 October 2021 14:09:23 Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 06:35:01PM +0200, deloptes wrote: > > > 2. and another pesky thing is starting a konsole to do work, needs > > > a $PATH modification that we used to put in ~.profile. But opening > > > a terminal hasn't called a ". .profile" since about jessie. So > > > thats another PITA. > > > > > > So, what has replaced .profile as the function for such as that in > > > recent releases? > > > > AFAIK bash is not reading profile when you login, but not sure - it > > could be also that it is not a login shell. > > AFAIK you should open the terminal with "bash --login" to read the > > profile. So try in the terminal "bash --login" > > > > I have put in my .profile > > > > alias bash='bash --login' > > > > long time ago > > OK, first thing first: that alias won't do *anything* useful. If Gene > is talking about starting a terminal from his window manager or > desktop environment, that terminal is going to run $SHELL which is > /bin/bash. It will not look at his aliases, no matter where they're > defined. It's just going to run bash. Not "bash --login". > > Now let's step back a bit. > > When you run an instance of a shell, there are two ways you can do it. > You either run a "login shell", or a "non-login shell". > > The purpose of a login shell is to be executed when you login. That's > the original intent. Back in the 70s and 80s, there was no such thing > as a "desktop". There was just the shell. You logged in by > connecting your terminal or your modem to the host system, and getting > a textual prompt. After authentication, you were "logged in", and the > system would run your account's shell with a "-" character in front of > it. This is the ancient way that your system said "this should be a > login shell, not a regular shell". > > It looks like this: > > unicorn:~$ ps -ft tty1 > UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD > root 699 1 0 Oct09 tty1 00:00:00 /bin/login -p -- > greg 851 699 0 Oct09 tty1 00:00:00 -bash > greg 863 851 0 Oct09 tty1 00:00:00 /bin/sh > /usr/bin/startx [...] > > See where it says "-bash"? That's my login shell. > > The purpose of having a "login shell" and a "regular shell" is because > you probably have some things that you need to do once per session, > when you login. Like, setting up your environment variables. Or > printing today's calendar, or today's message from the administration. > All of those things are unnecessary in a regular shell. The > environment is already set up, and you've already seen today's > calendar or whatever. > > Any other time you started a shell, it would not have a "-" in front > of its name, so it would be a regular shell. This included shell > escapes from your text editor or mail reader or news reader or pager. > Any time you escaped to a new shell from inside your editor, you > didn't need to go through all the gyrations that a login shell did. > You don't want to see the calendar again, etc. > > A decade or two later, some people developed a windowing system. > > In this windowing system, there's a terminal emulator. Normally when > you run a terminal emulator, you run a shell inside it. (Not always, > but usually.) This shell doesn't need to be a login shell. You're > probably going to open half a dozen terminal emulators with shells in > them, maybe more. You don't need to run the day's calendar, or set up > the session environment, in every single terminal. All of that has > been taken care of already. (Right?) > > So, in an X terminal emulator, you normally run a NON-login shell. > Just a regular shell. > > That's how it's supposed to work. > > However. > > Some people found that they had a really hard time getting their > initial environment set up during their X logins. This was common > among newbies especially, because they didn't understand the new login > procedure, and had no idea how to customize it. > > And where did we have a shit-load of Unix newbies? Universities. > > So, in the world of academia, there is a whole different paradigm. In > this world, where everyone is expected to be incompetent, the old way > of setting up your environment one time and inheriting it in every > shell... that doesn't work. > > In the newbie-centric environment, where nobody knows how to do > anything correctly, terminal emulators are configured to run login > shells. > > There's an option for it, of course. The people who wrote xterm > realized that one might wish to run either a regular shell or a login > shell. So xterm has this option: > > -ls This option indicates that the shell that is started in > the xterm window will be a login shell (i.e., the first character of > argv[0] will be a dash, indicating to the shell that it should read > the user's .login or .profile). > > Universities configured things so that their users' terminals would > all run with this option, which means the users would get a login > shell in each terminal. > > And then the users, who were all newbies and don't know any better, > could simply be told "if you want to change your environment, edit > this one dot file". (In academia, csh was the dominant shell, so the > file in question would usually be .login as the xterm man page hints > at. In most Linux distributions, the shell is bash, so the file is > .profile or .bash_profile. But in any case, there's just *one* file > for the user to worry about, and support calls are reduced.) > > In modern times, the place where we find nothing but newbies as far as > the eye can see... is called Ubuntu. If you get a question from an > Ubuntu user, they're probably completely inexperienced, and know > virtually nothing. Therefore, in an Ubuntu setup, it would make sense > to strip everything down so there's only one way to do things. That > makes it easier to answer questions. You don't have to *educate* the > user. You don't have to help them understand anything. You don't > have to explain why things work they way they do. You just tell them > "edit this file". > > In Gene's old environment, someone had clearly gone Academia/Ubuntu on > him, and had configured his terminals to run login shells. > > This isn't *wrong*. It's a way to do things. But what it means is > Gene was operating in Ubuntu-user mode for all that time. He never > learned the original way to do things, or why he was using the > simplified way, or even that there *was* a choice of ways. > > So, that's the history and background. > > Now we're back to the present. The question, I believe, is: > > > **** How do I set up my environment? **** > > > This is not a trivial question to answer, because there are so many > different possible setups. It all depends on how you login. > > 1) If you ssh into the system, then you get a login shell. This login > shell *is* your session. So, all you have to do is set up your > login shell environment. > > If your shell is bash, then you edit the file .bash_profile if that > exists, or .bash_login if that exists, or .profile if neither of > the other two files exists. > > On a regular Debian system, there is no .bash_profile or > .bash_login file, so you'd simply edit .profile. That's the only file > you have to worry about for your login enviroment. > > 2) If you login on the Linux console (/dev/tty1 and so on), in text > mode, then you *also* get a login shell. So everything is the same as > the ssh case. See above. > > Even if you start an X session (by typing "startx"), your > environment has already been set up by your login shell. You don't > need to set it up again inside the X session. The X session inherits > the environment from the login shell, and then the terminal emulators > inherit it from the X session, and the shells that run inside the > terminal emulators inherit it from the terminals. > > 3) If you login to X11 with a graphical display manager, everything > is completely different. You do *not* get a login shell as your > session. You don't get a login shell at all. Ever. (Unless > someone went and Ubuntu-fied your terminals.) > > In this case, you can have one of a few different types of session. > Because why would anything ever be simple? > > If you use a standard Debian X11 session, you can configured it in > one of two different ways: > > a) If you have a .xsession file, this overrides the system's X11 > session. You control exactly what gets executed. You can > configure your environment in the .xsession file, or you can > have it dot in a shell configuration file. You just have to know what > you're doing. > > b) If you use the standard system session, Debian lets you > customize it in the .xsessionrc file. This gets dotted in by the > session before it starts running X apps. So you can configure your > environment in this file. > > .xsessionrc is unique to Debian. It's not found on other Linux > variants. Some other Linuxes introduce .xprofile or other > files. > > And then there's GNOME. Because obviously GNOME has to be unique > and have its own separate session type, and its own way of doing > everything, none of the answers above applies to GNOME. Except maybe > the .xsessionrc file. I think Debian still arranges for GNOME > sessions to dot that in. Maybe. Don't quote me on it. > > (But don't think that your job is done if you manage to export > environment variables from .xsessionrc. Oh no. GNOME is *so* much > worse than that. It's so bad that I won't even try to describe > it here. It needs a whole thread of its own. We've had several > over the years.) > > 4) And finally there's Wayland. I don't know what the hell Wayland > does. Nobody who uses it has ever told us how it works. You won't > find any useful information about it on the Debian wiki, etc. > > See also: > > https://wiki.debian.org/Xsession > https://wiki.debian.org/EnvironmentVariables
Is it beer-thirty yet? Tis here. Except its a stretch to call the stuff this diabetic drinks beer. ;o) Some won't even call my coffee coffee. Cheers, Gene Heskett. -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
