Bug 1880

Summary: problem with script /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Dimitri Papadopoulos <dpo>
Component: XFree86Assignee: Preston Brown <pbrown>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 5.1CC: dpo
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-03-30 20:52:16 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Dimitri Papadopoulos 1999-03-30 14:59:30 UTC
The file /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession is not the original XFree86
one. It has been enhanced - probably by Red Hat.

This enhancement has introduced a bug in line 54:
	    exec "$startup $@"
where:
* "$startup" is $HOME/.xsession
* "$@" is whatever options are passed to the script
  by xdm or an equivalent program.
The script will try to exec a file in the $PATH with
the name "$startup $@" instead of a program with the
name "$startup" followed by command-line arguments "$@".


To fix this problem, change line 54 from
	    exec "$startup $@"
to
	    exec "$startup" "$@"



I am trying to install KDE and its kdm display manager.
In kdm, the user is able to choose the type of the session
- `failsafe' or `kde' or `CDE' or `fvwm' or whatever.
I have added an .xsession file to my home directory.
If I choose any session type that is not `failsafe',
let's say `kde', the script fails because it tries to
exec "/home/papadopo/.xsession kde".

I want to modify as few system files as possible. I chose
to create a .Xclients file instead of a .xsession file in
my home directory. The drawback is that no session type
argument is passed anymore from  /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession to
.Xclients: I can only choose between `failsafe' which is
handled directly in /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession and another
environment defined in .Xclients.

Comment 1 Preston Brown 1999-03-30 20:52:59 UTC
This has been fixed in later releases of Red Hat Linux (5.2 and
greater). Please have a look at the /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession file from a
recent build of RawHide, and if you have any suggestions on improving
that one, report back to me.