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msi

Member

Registered: 2017-02-04

Posts: 143  

[Solved] RXVT config ignored when started via x-terminal-emulator

After reading about X terminal emulators recently, I switched from XTerm to RXVT – rxvt-unicode-256color, to be exact, so that Vim color themes would be displayed nicely.

Now, I was trying to set this as the default X terminal emulator, using update-alternatives:

# update-alternatives --config x-terminal-emulator
There are 5 choices for the alternative x-terminal-emulator (providing /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator).

  Selection    Path                 Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/bin/lxterm       30        auto mode
  1            /usr/bin/koi8rxterm   20        manual mode
  2            /usr/bin/lxterm       30        manual mode
  3            /usr/bin/urxvt        20        manual mode
  4            /usr/bin/uxterm       20        manual mode
  5            /usr/bin/xterm        20        manual mode

Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:

Number 3 seems to be the right choice here, so I selected it and hit enter. But if I use x-terminal-emulator instead of /usr/bin/urxvt now to start the terminal, the configuration (colors, fonts) in my .Xresources file is being ignored and I'm presented with a small white box containing a bit of tiny text in an ugly font and an ugly scroll bar on the left on top of that.

That's pretty strange, because x-terminal-emulator should do nothing but point to /usr/bin/urxvt, which it does. How is it possible then that I get a fully configured RXVT when running /usr/bin/urxvt directly, but not when running x-terminal-emulator?

I'm on Jessie, FWIW.

Last edited by msi (2018-03-18 00:38:12)

catprints

Member

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 145  

Re: [Solved] RXVT config ignored when started via x-terminal-emulator

You made me curious. I tried launching with x-terminal-emulator command and got the small font version.No .Xresources version.
Then I launched using xterm command and got the pretty version in my .Xresources. I know nothing about urxvt though. However, I am
on ascii not jessie.

Last edited by catprints (2018-03-17 22:18:32)

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"The obstacle is the path."

ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,255  

Re: [Solved] RXVT config ignored when started via x-terminal-emulator

Presumably it's because the WM_CLASS property is different between the two cases, and that the resources for urxvt refers to the differing class tag.

Use xprop | grep WM_CLASS to check.

msi

Member

Registered: 2017-02-04

Posts: 143  

Re: [Solved] RXVT config ignored when started via x-terminal-emulator

Ok, I checked this.

For the terminal started directly calling /usr/bin/urxvt, the output is:

WM_CLASS(STRING) = "urxvt", "URxvt"

If I run x-terminal-emulator, I get:

WM_CLASS(STRING) = "x-terminal-emulator", "URxvt"

I'm unsure what to make of this, however.

ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,255  

Re: [Solved] RXVT config ignored when started via x-terminal-emulator

By my theory, the desired resources are tagged with urxvt (rather than URxvt), and they are therefore not applicable to a window lacking that tag. The supporting patch would thus be to replace all urxvt with URxvt in the resource definition file(s), and then it all will magically work.

msi

Member

Registered: 2017-02-04

Posts: 143  

Re: [Solved] RXVT config ignored when started via x-terminal-emulator

Yes, that fixes it. Thanks a lot!