The -/+ut parameter pair should change the behaviour of nxterm towards utmp (update / no update or viceversa, no man page, -h help is not very clear). Nxterm always ignores it and never writes to the log, making the console invisible. GSR
nxterm +ut (now in new window) [pbrown@dionysus kdebase]$ tty /dev/pts/6 [pbrown@dionysus kdebase]$ w 11:18am up 53 days, 23:33, 4 users, load average: 1.15, 0.91, 1.02 USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT pbrown tty1 - Thu 2pm 4days 0.15s 0.04s bash pbrown pts/0 - Mon 2pm 20:23m 0.00s 0.00s /bin/cat pbrown pts/6 - 11:18am 0.00s 0.10s 0.05s w (close that window) nxterm -ut (in new window) [pbrown@dionysus kdebase]$ tty /dev/pts/6 [pbrown@dionysus kdebase]$ w 11:19am up 53 days, 23:34, 3 users, load average: 1.60, 1.08, 1.07 USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT pbrown tty1 - Thu 2pm 4days 0.15s 0.04s bash pbrown pts/0 - Mon 2pm 20:24m 0.00s 0.00s /bin/cat It looks like it is working on a stock system here. This is with a stock XFree86 from Red Hat Linux 6.1.
Looks like you validated the bug as genuine as the w command clearly doesn't show any user running the w command !!!
That's right. Because if you disable utmp writing, your shell/window/etc. will not show up in 'who' or 'w' output. This is correct behaviour.