File .emacs not read

[Philippe Delavalade]

Hi.

I'm using emacs 25.3.1 under linux ; I just upgraded slint-14.2 to 14.2.1rc2.

Now when starting emacs as user philippe or root or others, it seems that
~/.emacs is not read and I obtain a window *warnings* saying :

Error (initialization): User GDM has no home directory

I looked for this error on google but answers don't help me.

Thanks for advices.

Regards.

--
Ph. Delavalade

[Loris Bennett]

Hi,

I don't think this is an Emacs problem. GDM sounds like the Gnome
Display Manager and on my Debian system the user 'Debian-gdm' is the
owner of my Gnome shell. Bizarrely you seemed to have managed to log in
as a similar system user. As this user doesn't have a home directory,
let alone a .emacs, you get the error you are seeing.

What does 'whoami' or 'id' say? Maybe some other stuff than just slint
got upgraded and broke your display manager.

Cheers,

Loris

--
This signature is currently under construction.

[Philippe Delavalade]

Le jeudi 30 novembre à 16:17, Loris Bennett a écrit :

> Hi,
>
> Philippe Delavalade <philippe....@orange.fr> writes:
>
> > Hi.
> >
> > I'm using emacs 25.3.1 under linux ; I just upgraded slint-14.2 to 14.2.1rc2.
> >
> > Now when starting emacs as user philippe or root or others, it seems that
> > ~/.emacs is not read and I obtain a window *warnings* saying :
> >
> > Error (initialization): User GDM has no home directory
> >
> > I looked for this error on google but answers don't help me.
> >
> > Thanks for advices.
>
> I don't think this is an Emacs problem. GDM sounds like the Gnome
> Display Manager and on my Debian system the user 'Debian-gdm' is the
> owner of my Gnome shell. Bizarrely you seemed to have managed to log in
> as a similar system user. As this user doesn't have a home directory,
> let alone a .emacs, you get the error you are seeing.

Thanks for your answer.

I'm really logged as I should be (root, philippe, etc.).

I don't know the real status of gdm; Gnome is not installed, just gdm so
that accessibility for blind people works in a gui (I don't use this).

>
> What does 'whoami' or 'id' say? Maybe some other stuff than just slint
> got upgraded and broke your display manager.

Maybe but I'm using console.

I observed that if I use C-x C-u for instance, emacs asks me if I want to
enable the command for future editing sessions. If I say yes, it asks to
create directory /home/philippe/tmp/~GDM/. When saying yes, it creates
the directory with a .emacs in it with the line
(put 'upcase-region 'disabled nil)

But in a new cessions, it does not read this file .emacs and still asks
for upcasing the region. Then it creates a new .emacs exactly the same as .emacs~.

I'll try to see with the slint maintainer but I knwo he is not an emacs user...

Thanks again.

Regards.

--
Ph. Delavalade

[Emanuel Berg]

Philippe Delavalade wrote:

> /home/philippe/tmp/~GDM/

Do

M-x apropos-value RET GDM RET

and see if you can learn from where this GDM
stuff originates.

Eval these variables (C-x C-e)

user-emacs-directory
user-full-name
user-init-file
user-login-name
user-real-login-name

as well as the functions

(user-full-name)
(user-login-name)
(user-original-login-name)
(user-real-login-name)
(user-real-uid)
(user-uid)

Again post whoami(1) and id(1) .

Do -Q invocation as well as ordinary from your
user account and compare.

--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

[Nick Dokos]

Philippe Delavalade <philippe....@orange.fr> writes:

> Maybe but I'm using console.

So how do you get a *WINDOW* with the warning? Do you mean a window *in emacs*?

>
> I observed that if I use C-x C-u for instance, emacs asks me if I want to
> enable the command for future editing sessions. If I say yes, it asks to
> create directory /home/philippe/tmp/~GDM/. When saying yes, it creates
> the directory with a .emacs in it with the line
> (put 'upcase-region 'disabled nil)
>

This looks screwy: Why is it choosing this directory?

Please report the values of the following variables:

user-login-name
user-emacs-directory

--
Nick

[Philippe Delavalade]

Le vendredi 01 décembre à 20:26, Emanuel Berg a écrit :

> Philippe Delavalade wrote:
>
> > /home/philippe/tmp/~GDM/
>
> Do
>
> M-x apropos-value RET GDM RET

I obtain :

command-history
((apropos-value (quote ("GDM")) nil) (execute-extended-command nil
"apropos-value" "apropos-val"))

init-file-user
"GDM"

and somewhere below

"LOGNAME=GDM" "LESS=-M" "G_FILENAME_E

> and see if you can learn from where this GDM
> stuff originates.
>
> Eval these variables (C-x C-e)
>
> user-emacs-directory

"~/.emacs.d/"
> user-full-name
""
> user-init-file
"~GDM/.emacs" (wrong)
> user-login-name
"GDM" (wrong)
> user-real-login-name
"philippe" (right)

>
> as well as the functions
>
> (user-full-name)
""
> (user-login-name)

"GDM"
> (user-original-login-name)
"GDM"
> (user-real-login-name)
"philippe"
> (user-real-uid)
1000 (#o1750, #x3e8)
> (user-uid)
1000 (#o1750, #x3e8)

>
> Again post whoami(1)
philippe
> and id(1)
uid=1000(philippe) gid=1000(philippe) groupes=1000(philippe),5(tty),7(lp),
11(floppy),17(audio),18(video),19(cdrom),93(scanner)

I obtained these with M-! (was it the right way ?)

>
> Do -Q invocation as well as ordinary from your
> user account and compare.

First, no error with '-w' option.
Here is theonly difference
user-init-file which is nil (quite normal I tink)

So I don't understand what user GDm is. By default slackware (and slint)
defined a group and a user 'gdm' but I deleted them yesterday.
Package gdm is not installed (yesterday I said that it was but it is not).

Regards.

--
Ph. Delavalade

[Philippe Delavalade]

Le vendredi 01 décembre à 20:32, Nick Dokos a écrit :

> Philippe Delavalade <philippe....@orange.fr> writes:
>
> > Maybe but I'm using console.
>
> So how do you get a *WINDOW* with the warning? Do you mean a window *in emacs*?

yes I do.

>
> >
> > I observed that if I use C-x C-u for instance, emacs asks me if I want to
> > enable the command for future editing sessions. If I say yes, it asks to
> > create directory /home/philippe/tmp/~GDM/. When saying yes, it creates
> > the directory with a .emacs in it with the line
> > (put 'upcase-region 'disabled nil)
> >
>
> This looks screwy: Why is it choosing this directory?

Because /home/philippe/tmp is teh current one.

> Please report the values of the following variables:
>
> user-login-name

"GDM"
> user-emacs-directory
"~/.emacs.d/"

Thanks.

--
Ph. Delavalade

[Emanuel Berg]

Philippe Delavalade wrote:

> command-history ((apropos-value (quote
> ("GDM")) nil) (execute-extended-command nil
> "apropos-value" "apropos-val"))

This is related to the `apropos-value' search -
that is, it is unrelated to your issue.
That's always like this with apropos-value, but
luckily, it is easy to see which ones of the
hits are related to the search itself.

> init-file-user "GDM"

This is the/one error but not the source of it.

> and somewhere below
>
> "LOGNAME=GDM" "LESS=-M" "G_FILENAME_E

Here it is! You have an environmental variable,
LOGNAME, which is set to GDM . You can confirm
this with

$ env | grep LOGNAME

So next step - where, and why, is it setup
like that?

[Also unrelated: The LESS is likewise an
environmental variable that defines the
standard flags (options or settings) to the
less(1) pager. The -M option which you have is

-M or --LONG-PROMPT
Causes less to prompt even more verbosely than more.

The "G_FILENAME_E" (EXTENTION?) I something I'm
unfamiliar with, but probably it is unrelated
as well.

But on the whole to rely heavily on
environmentals like this is something that was
more common way back. And I thought *I* was an
old-schooler...]

> I obtained these with M-! (was it the right
> way ?)

Sure, or one of the right ways I should say.
Probably more convenient to have either an
external terminal in X, or the console (Linux
VT/ttys) with tmux or screen, or M-x shell RET
in Emacs. But the result should be the same :)