[Mageia-dev] Deprecating startx

Wed Mar 7 13:02:52 CET 2012

2012/3/7 Colin Guthrie <mageia at colin.guthr.ie>:
+> 'Twas brillig, and Wolfgang Bornath at 07/03/12 10:13 did gyre and gimble:
+>>
+>> Different from Guillaume I do care about the impact for the user.
+>> There are many out there who are used to startx and also docs and
+>> howtos which use it. Therefore we will need an explanation for
+>> switching off startx.  An explanation to be used in forums, which is a
+>> bit more than just a link to a bug report. In other words: to be
+>> understood by non-techie users.
+>
+> To answer Guillaume's question, I wasn't personally planning on removing
+> it fully. Just documenting that it is broken and that users should not
+> use this as a mechanism for starting X.
+>
+> I would propose just putting in "echo 'startx is deprecated. Here is
+> why.....   Press any key to continue anyway.' >&2; read -n 1" in the
+> startx script such that users using it will be warned. Does this seem
+> sensible?
+
+It is sensible and enough for the situation at hand (when the user
+actually punches in "startx" and the command does not work as
+expected). In principle on the same level of information like "file
+not found". That's all which is needed from the technical side.
+
+People more close to the users will have to think of an explanation
+without tech-talk, understandable for the user who comes to the forum
+complaining that the command he had been using for many years (or
+which is written in a documentation) does not work.
+
+-- 
+wobo
+