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Summary says it all, really - aterm doesn't read either of those files. I've done an strace, and neither of them figures. The manpage says it's supposed to try both of them.
Could you give more info (content of your .Xdefaults/.Xresources) and aterm version (both rpm and aterm output (the Usage line with the compile options)). I use .Xresources over here and it works fine.
OK - I've done a bit more debugging, and found where the issue is. It's because the .spec file passes --enable-xgetdefault in to %configure when it's building. According to README.configure, that enables resource checking via XGetDefault() instead of doing what the manpage says it does (checking .Xdefaults/.Xresources directly). I guess the simple solution is to get rid of the --enable-xgetdefault in the .spec file, though that may cause problems for other people?
You are right, the .spec does pass --enable-xgetdefault to the configure script. This does not mean however that .Xresources/.Xdefaults is not read (see http://xorg.freedesktop.org/X11R6.8.0/doc/manindex3.html). Besides its working for a bunch of people I talked to. If you would be so kind and attach a copy of the relevant options form your .Xdefaults/.Xresources I could try to figure out whats not working for you...
Such a change in the package would not be right. ~/.Xdefaults died long ago in XFree86. Enabling a custom resource loader just to bring it back to live, would be wrong.
Exactly what I think and why I enabled it in the first place...
Sure, fair enough. In that case, the manpage is misleading when it's built with --enable-xgetdefault. I'm probably doing something very stupid, in that case. Further debugging reveals that most of the Aterm* options in my ~/.Xresources are being used correctly (*transparent, *saveLines, *fading, and various others). Sorry - my initial bug report was incorrect in that regard. However, one of them is not: Aterm*foreground: powderblue I always get a black foreground. Changing it to Aterm.foreground makes no difference. But if I manually do an "xrdb .Xresources" and then fire up an aterm, it's fine. Alternatively, compiling with --enable-xgetdefault also makes it read that resource correctly - though I agree with you that that's the wrong solution ultimately. Thanks for the help. Sorry if this is something really silly. chris% rpm -q aterm aterm-0.4.2-5 chris% aterm -version aterm version 0.4.2 from 06 September 01 (background image,XPM,utmp,menubar,transparency,fading,NeXT scrollbar,XGetDefaults)
It's important to know what's in your ~/.Xresources file and what "xrdb -query" reports after you have logged in, because your resources are merged into the database. Loading just your file would remove the other resources. I assume you have some desktop theme or style-override activated, which activates other resources already, e.g. *background and *foreground or XTerm resources you don't change in your ~/.Xresources.
Oh, and I think ~/.Xdefaults is only mentioned because of aterm's age and because older implementations of X might have it. The manual could be patched to drop that for Fedora.
Thanks for the insight, I will patch the man-page to not include .Xdefaults for the next version. Currently 1.00.beta2 is out so maybe this can wait till final is released. Don't think its a critical bug...
OK. Sorry for hassling you guys. It was a bug in my understanding, not in aterm. Some startup script somewhere is setting: *foreground: #000000 I was under the impression that putting "Aterm*foreground" in my .Xresources ought to override this, but it plainly isn't doing: if I set "*foreground: yellow" I get yellow text in my aterm, etc., etc., irrespective of my "Aterm*foreground" setting. However, setting aterm*foreground does override it. I still don't quite understand that, but that's my problem, not yours... Sorry again for the hassle, and thanks for the help.