[Mageia-dev] Deprecating startx

Colin Guthrie mageia at colin.guthr.ie
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
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http://colin.guthr.ie/

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