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[Bug 678421] Re: Error message for a faulty ~/.profile script

 

Hi Gunnar,

> It would make the file not being loaded in case of a syntax error, and
an entry printed to ~/.xsession-errors.

I don't know if it's better to ignore this file in case of syntax errors
or to refuse to start a new session but for me, the most interesting
thing is to notify the user what's wrong. That can be made by adding a
line in the ~/.xsession-errors file but I think it's better to display a
new dialogue which explains the error.

Because if you just ignore this file and print an error in ~/.xsession-errors, I'm not sure that the user will see that there is a problem with his/her ~/.profile file.
Personally I don't often read this file :-)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/678421

Title:
  Error message for a faulty ~/.profile script

Status in Light Display Manager:
  In Progress
Status in “gdm” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “lightdm” package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: gdm

  After adding "function AddPath { PATH="$1:$PATH" }" to $HOME/.profile
  made the Xorg startup fail. (At that moment I had already forgotten
  the changes made to the .profile). As I had autologin that meant it
  kept trying to login and finally showed me the graphics
  reconfiguration screen. That sent me to a huge hunt for xorg conf and
  setup problems.

  Anyway finally tracked this down. I had used bash syntax in .profile
  file whereas it was run with sh.

  This is not a bug per se but I think a user mistake in ".profile"
  shouldn't bring the whole xorg startup to a halt as it does with
  autologin. I propose running user ".profile" and ".xprofile" scripts
  so that Xsession script continues running even if they have errors.
  I'm not sure whether this change would have some negative effects as
  well.

  1) Ubuntu Lucid, Linux egon-laptop 2.6.32-25-generic #45-Ubuntu SMP Sat Oct 16 19:48:22 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux
  2) gdm 2.30.2.is.2.30.0-0ubuntu4

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