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Mac Forum / Programming / Mac Programming / April 2006Need help with path in both terminal and x11 sessions
This is somewhat off-topic, but I couldn't think of a better place to ask the question... I've been trying to get some command-line software working under 10.4 (latest version). Most of it runs happily in terminal/bash. One of the modules, however, has to be run in an x11 window. Experimentation showed that the terminal/bash programs required the paths to be set in /etc/profile and/or ~/.profile - /etc/bashrc and ~/.bashrc seemed to be ignored (is that what's supposed to\happen?) However, it appears that sessions opened in an x11 window (Apple's version, installed from the developer tools pacakge) ignores /etc/profile and ~/.profile (again, is that normal?) The application in question is gromacs, who's modules run happily under terminal in a bash shell except for ngmx which requires the x11 window. cd'ing to the appropriate directory and directly invoking the program (./ngmx) within the x11 window works. Can I get x11 sessions to use /etc/profile and ~/.profile, or do I need to duplicate the path settings somewhere else? If so, where? Is there a good tutorial somewhere that explains (for the non-*nix adept) how all these things (terminal, aquaterm, x11, bash, etc.) work and how to configure them correctly? Most of the hints I've found so far have referred to earlier incarnations of X where the default shell was tcsh, and things don't work quite the same way... > Can I get x11 sessions to use /etc/profile and ~/.profile, or do > I need to duplicate the path settings somewhere else? If so, > where? Is there a good tutorial somewhere that explains (for > the non-*nix adept) how all these things (terminal, aquaterm, x11, > bash, etc.) work and how to configure them correctly? Whether you use Terminal or xterm, you are running a shell. The difference is that Terminal runs a login shell by default, while xterm does not. Login shells are the only ones that process /etc/profile and ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile. If your login shell happens to be csh or tcsh, then it processes /etc/csh.login and ~/.login instead. You can make xterm start up a login shell by invoking it with the "-ls" flag, as described in "man xterm". Another way is to define a resource in your ~/.Xresources file: XTerm*LoginShell: true  SignatureDave Seaman U.S. Court of Appeals to review three issues concerning case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. <http://www.mumia2000.org/> > > Can I get x11 sessions to use /etc/profile and ~/.profile, or do > > I need to duplicate the path settings somewhere else? If so, [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > XTerm*LoginShell: true I only see ~/.Xauthority - are there any other possible locations, or do I have to create one? As I said in my original post, I simply ran Apple's package installer and let it use the default locations - perhaps that was a mistake? >> > Can I get x11 sessions to use /etc/profile and ~/.profile, or do >> > I need to duplicate the path settings somewhere else? If so, [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >> >> XTerm*LoginShell: true > I only see ~/.Xauthority - are there any other possible locations, > or do I have to create one? As I said in my original post, I > simply ran Apple's package installer and let it use the default > locations - perhaps that was a mistake? You can create your own ~/.Xresources. Notice that the file /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc looks for this file and uses it if it exists. Type "man xterm" and scroll down to the section on RESOURCES to see what can go into your .Xresources file. Similarly for other X11 apps. SignatureDave Seaman U.S. Court of Appeals to review three issues concerning case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. <http://www.mumia2000.org/> > >> > Can I get x11 sessions to use /etc/profile and ~/.profile, or do > >> > I need to duplicate the path settings somewhere else? If so, [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > Type "man xterm" and scroll down to the section on RESOURCES to see what > can go into your .Xresources file. Similarly for other X11 apps. Didn't try this, because I tried Ben Artin's solution first and found it to work very nicely. Archived locally for future reference, however! Thanks to Ben and Dave for the helpful responses... [some stuff about bash's confusing config file behavior] Put this in your ~/.bash_profile: . $HOME/.bashrc and then put all your changes in your .bashrc. That will cover both cases. hth Ben SignatureIf this message helped you, consider buying an item from my wish list: <http://artins.org/ben/wishlist> I changed my name: <http://periodic-kingdom.org/People/NameChange.php> > [some stuff about bash's confusing config file behavior] That's a masterly understatement! > Put this in your ~/.bash_profile: > > . $HOME/.bashrc > > and then put all your changes in your .bashrc. That will cover both cases. Ok, there isn't a ~/.bash_profile currently, only a ~/.bash_history - will it work to simply create one? There is a /etc/bashrc - can I modify this to force the system to look for $HOME/.bashrc for all users? > > [some stuff about bash's confusing config file behavior] > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Ok, there isn't a ~/.bash_profile currently, only a ~/.bash_history > - will it work to simply create one? Yes. > There is a /etc/bashrc - can I modify this to force the system to > look for $HOME/.bashrc for all users? Yes, but note that /etc/bashrc is owned by the OS and will be reverted to its pristine state by OS installs. Ben SignatureIf this message helped you, consider buying an item from my wish list: <http://artins.org/ben/wishlist> I changed my name: <http://periodic-kingdom.org/People/NameChange.php> |
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