Re: Should g_get_homedir use $HOME

[Eric Gillespie <epg pretzelnet org>]

Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com> writes:

    > as the target user. Both sudo and usermode get this "wrong"
    > currently, so this might be an argument that we should ignore
    > $HOME.

sudo does not get this wrong.  I'll quote from my comment on this bug
report:

 HOME should be tried first.  The reason su and sudo don't change HOME
 is because you usually want to take your settings with you into
 superuser-land (.emacs, .zshrc, etc.).  I think all that's being
 asked for here is sane behavior when HOME is not writable; ignoring
 it altogether or using it as a last resort is not helpful.

I think you resolved this bug in the wrong direction.  Your own
example of the user with the high-contrast theme gets broken by your
resolution.  The hand-waving about GConf and stuff is irrelevant; i
have a .gtkrc and i expect it to be respected even when i su.  All the
GTK+ programs i currently use do that.

    > Since apps are in general _not_ written to deal with these
    > situations I think it's better to make g_get_homedir() not pay

I can't remember off the top of my head which GNOME program this was,
but i was running something after su and all it did was spew some
warnings about not being able to save state.  This is acceptable
behavior.  I don't see what the problem is.

Really, i'd prefer if all these GNOME programs didn't go stomping
around in my home directory without me telling them to.  I have these
stupid .gnome{,_private} and .gconf directories that have no business
existing, since i've never meddled with the configuration of any of
the GNOME programs i've used.  Certainly GNOME is not the only
offender, but complaining about KDE apps here is even more off-topic
here than complaining about GNOME apps :).

-- 
Eric Gillespie, Jr. <*> epg pretzelnet org

Conformity is a sin.