On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Valeriy E. Ushakov wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 16, 2003 at 16:00:05 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>
> > I was unaware you could do this! I would much rather have never
> > touched anything under /usr/X11R6 but I always felt compelled to. Is
> > it possible for us to rig things up so that a shadow tree in /etc/X11
> > is looked at before /usr/X11R6 so that the mechanism can be made more
> > general?

I would like that, too, for the programs that have config files (but
not for other things in $USRLIBDIR, like app-defaults and fonts).

> Ain't it the way it is already?  XFree looks in /etc/X11 before
> /usr/X11/...

That doesn't seem to be the case. Examining the code for "xdm", "xfs",
and "rstart", the rule seems to be, that a single path for the default
config file is passed in through a define on the compiler command
line. It wouldn't be hard to code differently, it's more a question of
setting policy. I suppose you would pass in a search path, like
$(USRLIBDIR)/$progname:/etc/X11/$progname, and a plain file-name,
instead of a full path. What are the chances the XFree86 people would
go for something like that? Is the current default system, with
$(USERLIBDIR) being full of symlinks into "/etc", as unsatisfactory to
everyone else as it is to us?

Frederick