up vote 0 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I've got a working Xming / Cygwin installation set up on my Windows. Well, mostly...

I did set my home directory to /cygdrive/d in /etc/passwd. When I start the Cygwin Bash Shell (the pimped-up DOS window), this works - $HOME is set to /cygdrive/d, Cygwin finds my ~/.bash_profile, everything is fine.

However, when I start an xterm, it starts in /cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings/<Username>, and it does not source my .bash_profile, which is annoying as hell.

Sometime during this afternoon, it worked, and now it's broken, but for the life of me I cannot remember how I broke it.

Help?

Edit: Sorry, I should have been more precise. The xterm is started as xterm -ls, i.e. as login shell. It does find the global profile (because it runs a bash and sets $PS1 correctly), but it obviously gets confused about $HOME (and thus does not run ~/.bash_profile because it cannot find it).

I know a way or two to work around it, but I'd like to find the cause of this muckup, not fix the effects.

Edit2: Further testing showed that this - $HOME not being set according to /etc/passwd - happens only when the application is started from the Xming / Xmingrc taskbar menu. It's also contagious: Any sub-xterm started from a "broken" xterm opens in the wrong $HOME. Likewise the other way round: Any bash / xterm started outside the Xmingrc menu (that opens in the proper $HOME) can start sub-xterms that also are correct.

I'm a bit confused here.

link|improve this question
100% accept rate
Might HOME already be set to C:\Documents and Settings\<user> when xterm is invoked? That would override the /etc/passwd setting. – ak2 Aug 7 '10 at 22:21
@ ak2: Can't be, really. When I start the Cygwin Bash Shell (DOS box), HOME is set correctly. And it doesn't matter whether I start the xterm from that bash shell or directly through a destop shortcut. But I will double-check this tomorrow (it's my office workstation I'm talking about). – DevSolar Aug 8 '10 at 9:31
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

xterm starts in the current directory and executes the program you tell it to execute (your preferred shell by default, but not a login shell). That's true on Windows as well as Unix. If you want to have a login shell, run xterm -e bash --login. If you want to start in your home directory, set the directory field in the shortcut (assuming you're starting xterm from a Windows shortcut).

link|improve this answer
See updated question, sorry. – DevSolar Aug 7 '10 at 5:52
feedback
up vote 0 down vote accepted

I found the answer hidden in the Xming documentation. If no HOME environment variable is set in the system, Xming sets it to %USERPROFILE%.

Which in turn overrides the Cygwin /etc/passwd settings, as ak2 pointed out.

So, the solution is to manually set HOME in the control panel.

link|improve this answer
Or use Cygwin's own X server instead of Xming. (It's the xorg-server package in setup.exe.) – ak2 Aug 9 '10 at 12:00
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.