This is a description of all the changes made in the HEPiX X11 scripts since the version 3.0.6.
There are no major functional changes so the global behaviour should be the same. However, many things changed "behind the scene", mainly because of the split between the shell and the X11 parts of the HEPiX scripts.
ksh
syntax,
this should be faster (using more built-in functions)
and lighter on system resources
Warning: because of the ksh
requirement, you must put a ksh
-compatible shell under
/bin/ksh
on SunOS 4 machines, for instance a link to
/usr/local/bin/zsh
. This "hack" is not needed on all the
other operating systems and will therefore disappear with SunOS 4...
Because of the split, there are now a templates
and
a tools
directories under /usr/local/lib/hepix/X11
.
They contain the files needed/used only by the X11 part.
The installation works fine at CERN with SUE and ASIS but still needs some work...
xdm
Wrappers They now use a C program (is_hepix
) to know if a user should run
the HEPiX scripts or not. It replaces the dirty shell code that was
buggy when NIS was used...
The code is a bit stronger and more informative in case of problems.
The Xresources
changed a bit:
F2
key in the login panel now starts
a "debug" X session with more information in the log file
The new tools
directory contains all the programs needed
by the X11 scripts at some point and that can be used "standalone".
quota-warn
xinfo
Xinfo
script from 3.0.6,
the changes are documented below
xkillwm
xmessage
xmessage-ack
(display a message that must be acknowledged) and
xmessage-tmp
(display a temporary message)
xsession-fake
There is a new variable containing the version of the scripts: $HX_VERSION
.
Some useless files have been removed (e.g HEP_special.keyboard
),
others renamed (e.g. HEP_desktop.CDE
was previously HEP_xsession.CDE
)
but this should be harmless. Also, the code to prepare the fvwmrc
file has been moved to the site part.
The Xsession is now a single file (HEP_Xsession
) and contains
what was previously in HEP_xsession.default
.
Many messages changed to be more informative. The code also moved a little to be more "intuitive". The code should also be more robust in case of errors.
Some new tools are used:
xsecure
: to "secure" the X server, it was previously some
shell code using xhost
dump_shell_env
: to get the user shell environment, it's
a simplified but more robust version of the previous DumpUserEnv
apply_policy
: to check the major "switches" with respect
to the policy, it replaces the previous ProcessInfo
and is described below
Apart from the cosmetic cleanups described above, the only
"visible" change is the name of the fvwmrc
preparation
script, now called prepare_fvwmrc
.
Related to this fvwmrc
preparation, the HEP level
scripts used to do the job "transparently". Now it's really part of
the site level customisation, the CERN xprofile
contains:
HX_WM='fvwm -f `/usr/local/lib/hepix/X11/site/prepare_fvwmrc`'This is now more flexible (because you can start
fvwm
without this preparation) but may require a line similar to the one
above if you modify $HX_WM
.
Also, the program guesskbd
from ASIS is used to set
the variables $HX_KEYBOARD
and $HX_KBD_TYPE
.
More information can be found in the page describing the CERN customisation of the HEPiX X11 scripts.
xinfo
is a major component of the X11 architecture. It collects
various pieces of information about the X environment and put them in
shell environment variables. This new C version is roughly compatible
with the old shell script. Here are the changes:
Xinfo
(not used at CERN)
is not in xinfo
VENDOR
: some values have changed, e.g. an IBM X terminal
will now be 'ibm' instead of 'ibmX'
SIZE
: is now 'small', 'medium' or
'big' instead of being simply 'width x height'
RESOLUTION
: is the real resolution (not rounded)
without the useless 'dpi' string
RESPONSE
: is the time spent in milliseconds by the
complete C program
KBD_TYPE
: is not set anymore, the program
guesskbd
should deal with keyboard information
SERVER_HOST
: the host name of the X server
VENDOR_STRING
: the vendor string of the X server
EXTENSIONS
: a space-separated list of the X entensions
SERVER_TYPE
: the "type" of X server, either workstation (ws),
X terminal (xt), Macintosh (mac) or PC-compatible (pc)
PLANES
: the number of planes
The X policy handling checked by ProcessInfo
in 3.0.6
has been completely rethought. The global behaviour should be the same
but there are many more possibilities... not yet documented.
Note: ProcessInfo
used some files like
desktop-types
or window-managers
to modify
the "policy". This was not documented. The new
apply_policy
uses other file names with another syntax
and gives more possibilities.
Lionel Cons, 21-Jun-1996