PATH & file manager issues

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: PATH & file manager issues
started by: mikshaw

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 12 2005,20:39

A couple of minor changes in DSL could make it a little more useful.

First, the PATH variable is currently not passed on to child terminals unless the user manually sets the variable in .bashrc. The reason for this, as far as I can tell, is that /etc/bash.bashrc sources /etc/profile every time you open a new bash shell. /etc/profile sets the PATH variable explicitly (rather than adding to it), thus overwriting anything you may have set in a parent shell with the export command. As I see it, /etc/profile needs to be run only once during a session instead of with every xterm you open, and it's rather frustrating to have to work around something that shouldn't be there in the first place. I can understand sourcing a non-login rc from a login rc, but doing it the other way around seems illogical and limiting.

Second, EmelFM and Midnight Commander are both started from a wrapper script. This is a reasonable thing considering what the wrappers do, but they are both missing a vital feature...the ability to accept commandline parameters. A standard installation of either file manager allows the user to specify a directory as a parameter, but it does not work in DSL because the wrappers do not pass parameters onto the main programs.
I know you can use mc.bin and emelfm.bin, but this defeats the purpose of using the wrappers.

EDIT: my apologies for posting in the wrong forum.

Posted by roberts on Aug. 15 2005,17:23

Sourcing of /etc/profile goes all the way back to Knoppix from which we are derived. However, I had changed way DSL boots and do use a login. Therefore, I can and have dropped the sourcing of /etc/profile from bash.bashrc. Good analysis, mikshaw.