[Thus spake walt ("w: ") 12:30pm...]

w: Aha!  The plot thickens...
w:
w: Now when I start xterm from the run dialog everything works normally.
w: The xterm responds to signal 15 and to 'exit' or CTRL-D.

That is not the xterm responding to 'exit'/^D -- that is the shell.

w: BUT!
w:
w: When I create a custom icon for xterm on the gnome panel and start
w: the xterm by clicking on it -- the same old problem occurs, even with
w: ksh instead of bash.
w:
w: So -- what is the difference between using the run dialog and a
w: custom icon to start a process?  And what is the difference between
w: ksh and bash?  I hope you know the answers ;o)

The custom icon may exist in a different signal context than the
run dialog starts in.  Strange, reaching, but it is possible.
It sounds like someone, somewhere, is doing some misguided signal
fiddling in those chunks-o-code.

The difference between ksh and bash is that there are many differences.
ksh suc^W^Wbash handles both csh-style and ksh-style history referencing,
{} notation, and doesn't require one to type "fg" before a %job (though
of course it doesn't disallow it, either).  bash is someone's idea of trying
to please everyone in both worlds, while ksh is a lesser expansion
of the Bourne shell than that.

				--*greywolf;
--
                 A _Real_ Operating System for _Real_ Hackers.

                   ______ _   __     __  ____ _____ ____
                  ______ / |_/ /__  / /_/ __ ) ___// __ \
                 ______ /  |/ / _ \/ __/ __  \__ \/ / / /
                ______ / /|  /  __/ /_/ /_/ /__/ / /_/ /
               ______ /_/ |_/\___/\__/_____/____/_____/

	 With many thanks to the NetBSD development team and UCB CSRG.