xinitrc executableness needs to go (was Re: can't stop xftaskbar from loading)

[Jasper Huijsmans]

Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> Paul M. Bucalo wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, 2004-05-01 at 19:35, Andrew Conkling wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> I had similar problems for a long time (my particular issue was stopping
>>> the iconbox) and then I finally figured it out: I simply had to make my
>>> xinitrc executable.  I guess in the absence of that, it had been
>>> defaulting to the global file.
>>>   
>>
>> On my FC1 laptop, the files mentioned above are not executable, and yet
>> I am able to modify them with expected results. I went ahead and made
>> them executable on the RH 9 box, but still no difference.
>>
> can we please please _please_ change this behaviour?  it's really 
> non-intuitive and confusing that the systemwide /etc/xfce4/xinitrc 
> doesn't need to be executable (and is shipped as non-executable), but 
> the per-user ~/.xfce4/xinitrc needs to be.  looking in the startxfce4 
> script, in the part where it just runs those scripts without xinit (in 
> the case that X is already running), it runs either script by invoking 
> 'sh' first anyway, so the files need not be executable.  the scripts 
> checks for executableness of ~/.xfce4/xinitrc and only uses it if it 
> is.  it really needs to be changed to use the per-user file if it exists 
> in any shape or form.
> 
> this is a _huge_ point of confusion, and despite the fact that i believe 
> it does say in the docs to chmod +x the file, soooo many people miss 
> this and get really confused and waste unnecessary time over something 
> that isn't worth it, is really non-obvious, and is incredibly stupid.  
> this is really the #1 question i see in #xfce (and probably on the ML as 
> well)... with requests for desktop icons a close 2nd.
> 

Please go ahead and change it. Unless anyone objects. The behaviour is 
terribly inconsistent and there's no beneft I can think of.