[Mageia-dev] Deprecating startx

Wed Mar 7 14:36:28 CET 2012

'Twas brillig, and Wolfgang Bornath at 07/03/12 12:02 did gyre and gimble:
+> 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.
+
+For the avoidance of doubt, I would expect that hitting return would
+still end up starting X, just that the afore mentioned (and dutifully
+explained to the user) problems with ACLs etc. will be present.
+
+I'll be able to write some text here that is concise, so I'll do this
+shortly.
+
+Col
+
+
+-- 
+
+Colin Guthrie
+colin(at)mageia.org
+http://colin.guthr.ie/
+
+Day Job:
+  Tribalogic Limited http://www.tribalogic.net/
+Open Source:
+  Mageia Contributor http://www.mageia.org/
+  PulseAudio Hacker http://www.pulseaudio.org/
+  Trac Hacker http://trac.edgewall.org/
+