Re: FVWM: Strange Behavior...

From: Paul D. Smith <pausmith_at_nortelnetworks.com>
Date: 15 Jul 1999 10:19:45 -0400

%% "Thomas A. Gardiner" <gardiner_at_pas.rochester.edu> writes:

  tag> I'm trying to run xscreensaver when I log in by doing something like

  tag> AddToFunc "InitFunction"
  tag> + "I" Exec exec xscreensaver -timeout 1
  tag> + "I" Wait *screensaver

  tag> But after loging in I find that it is not running. I've tried
  tag> various combinations of using Wait and not, using just Exec and
  tag> using the combination Exec exec, all to no avail. Strangely
  tag> though, It can be run from the menu options. Looking at the
  tag> .fvwm2rc file I find that the menu option is doing something like
  tag> this:

  tag> # The following is added by package: xscreensaver
  tag> AddToMenu AUTO_WM_CONFIG.Amusements.Screen_Savers "xscreensaver
  tag> (1min time out)" Exec xscreensaver -timeout 1 -cycle 1 &

I'm not sure; seems weird.

Do you have a log file you can look at to see if xscreensaver is giving
any errors? I don't know that much about RedHat's setup, so I can't
tell you exactly where to look.

  tag> I should mention that I am using a RedHat system. I could use
  tag> the & also, but the man page for fvwm2 says NOT to do so. Can
  tag> someone please tell me _why_ we should not use an & like done
  tag> above?

The Exec function starts a subshell with the -c option to run your
command, then it abandons it. Thus, the "&" is redundant since the
entire shell is already, in effect, in the background.

Exec _doesn't_ wait for the shell to exit, so there's no benefit to
using an "&".

Even more, what does "exec foo &" really mean? Exec replaces the
current shell's runtime image with "foo", instead of invoking foo as a
subprocess. But the "&" is supposed to execute "exec foo" in a
shubshell in the background...

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <psmith_at_baynetworks.com>         Network Management Development
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.
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Received on Thu Jul 15 1999 - 09:22:47 BST

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