> I don't know about separate Xfree86 distributions for NetBSD, nor even
> for certain about the xterm in xsrc/xfree, but I do know that what's
> been in /usr/xsrc has _always_ required '-ls' to make the shell started
> by an xterm into a login shell.

this could mean, that in the past versions, even the non-login shell 
xterm was
either
1) reading the .profile - that's not very probable
or
2) getting the settings somehow from the environment - this seems more 
probable to me
because as i mentioned before, i didn't have to execute xterm with -ls 
to have for example "set -o vi" in it. the 2) functionality might be 
somehow removed, changed or disabled in the new version of X and 
therefore it stopped working...

>>hope that the wrong information in the man (-e switch is incompatible
>>with -ls;  xterm -ls -e ssh name works fine) will be removed...
> 
> 
> Why would you expect '-ls' and '-e' to be compatible?  They really are not.
> 
> '-ls' causes, among other things IIRC, a '-' character to be prepended
> to the argv[0] value of the shell process.  This is how the shell
> figures out that it's supposed to be a login shell.  See sh(1):
> 
>           When first starting, the
>      shell inspects argument 0, and if it begins with a dash `-', the shell is
>      also considered a login shell.  This is normally done automatically by
>      the system when the user first logs in.  A login shell first reads com-
>      mands from the files /etc/profile and .profile if they exist.
> 
> '-e' on the other hand runs something other than a shell so whatever you
> specify to run has to tell the ultimate shell to be a login shell.

well, because it works! when i try for example xterm -ls -e mc, it 
executes midnightcommander without any problems or error messages - 
according to the man, it should have some problems, shouldn't it? (btw, 
what dpes IIRC stand for? :o))

> I'm beginning to notice that you mentions '-e ssh' on occasion.  That's
> probably your problem:  SSH    Not xterm.
> 
> Run an xterm like 'xterm -ls &' and then from that terminal's prompt try
> running your ssh command and see what happens.
> 
> I start my slogin xterm windows much like this (from ctwm):
> 
> 	xterm -cn -rw -sb -si -sk -sl 2048 -ziconbeep 1 -e slogin -C proven.weird.com &
> 
> but I use SSH-3.2, not OpenSSH.

i probably know what you mean - if i used xterm -ls -e ssh name it could 
cause problems because of simultaneous use of -ls and -e... i mentioned 
-e ssh several times, because that's the case that i use and where -ls 
and -e WORK together, too...

_@_:

-- 
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Lubos Vrbka
National Centre for Biomolecular Research
Masaryk university, Brno, Czech Republic

shnek@chemi.muni.cz
http://www.chemi.muni.cz/~shnek
tel. +420 5 4112 9508
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