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RE: startx doesn't if $HOME contains white spaces


FYI -

While I agree with you "it is not a good idea" reality makes life hard.

There are times - due to corporate policy etc - a user has no control over this.

It would be helpful - if for cygwin, one would write scripts pre-emptively knowing that this problem can occur, it's not hard - it just means pre-emptively wrapping a few things in quotes.

Often, end users have little control over the way corporate systems configure PCs.

Alternatively, one could get the "Cygwin Setup.exe" people to recognize this problem and either (1) issue a *BIG*FAT*WARNING* when the system is installed, updated, etc, or (2) forcably some how - make $HOME something safe.

I for one, had to figure out that SSH refuses to work if certain files are on windows server and not local to the machine.

-Duane.


-----Original Message-----
From: cygwin-xfree-owner@cygwin.com [mailto:cygwin-xfree-owner@cygwin.com] On Behalf Of Phil Betts
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 10:32 AM
To: cygwin-xfree@cygwin.com
Subject: RE: startx doesn't if $HOME contains white spaces

Marco Atzeri wrote on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 1:49 PM::

> --- ludo  ha scritto:
>
>> my $HOME is :
>> $ echo $HOME
>> /c/Documents and Settings/patrick.PRO2204
>>
>
> it is not a good idea:
>
> http://cygwin.com/faq/faq-nochunks.html#faq.using.filename-spaces
>
>>
>> I think that white spaces in my $HOME directory name causes the
>> problem.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> does anybody encounters the same problem ?
>>
>
> of course, for this reason we don't do it :-)
>
> my $HOME in cygwin is /home/marco
>

If you wish cygwin to use /c/Documents and Settings/patrick.PRO2204 rather than setting up a separate $HOME directory, you could just use mount:

mount "$USERPROFILE" /home/patrick

Then edit your /etc/passwd file to set your home directory to /home/patrick.  You $HOME would now be /home/patrick for cygwin programs, and Windows can continue using its "Hey! Now that we
*can* have spaces in filenames, let's use them EVERYWHERE!"


Phil
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