-bash: no job control in this shell

[Mitchell Laks]

Hi Gurus!

When I boot my debian sid workstation:

I usually log into tty1 and then run startx. But sometimes i noodle around at the command line,
say to update drivers for X or whatever, run emacs, etc.

I notice right after I initially login to the pc

the shell says to me (ominously):

-bash: no job control in this shell.

1) I don't know what this means.
2) I don't know what causes it.
3) It bothers me (I dont know why. Just in principle!).
4) So if I really want that job control thingy back, what do I have to do.

I figure it is a left over from some mess up of my . files. But Professor Google
has not clued me in to know what causes this.

Thanks!
Mitchell

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[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2008-01-07 01:08:20 -0500, Mitchell Laks wrote:
> I notice right after I initially login to the pc
>
> the shell says to me (ominously):
>
> -bash: no job control in this shell.
>
> 1) I don't know what this means.
> 2) I don't know what causes it.

Perhaps some command in your .bashrc or .bash_profile. You can
some echo lines to see which command... (or "set -x", but this
will give you a lot of output).

--
Vincent Lefèvre <vin...@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
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[Wayne Topa]

Mitchell Laks(ml...@post.harvard.edu) is reported to have said:
> Hi Gurus!
>
> When I boot my debian sid workstation:
>
> I usually log into tty1 and then run startx. But sometimes i noodle around at the command line,
> say to update drivers for X or whatever, run emacs, etc.
>
> I notice right after I initially login to the pc
>
> the shell says to me (ominously):
>
> -bash: no job control in this shell.
>
> 1) I don't know what this means.
> 2) I don't know what causes it.
> 3) It bothers me (I dont know why. Just in principle!).
> 4) So if I really want that job control thingy back, what do I have to do.
>
> I figure it is a left over from some mess up of my . files. But Professor Google
> has not clued me in to know what causes this.

I have the same problem on a vendor install testing partition running
amd64. I searched for the answer for weeks before asking on the and64
list and not getting an answer. Odd that it's only on tty1.

I get rid of the "-bash: no job control in this shell" by logging in
and then doing a ^c. It logs that shell out and doesn't return on the
next login.

I've been installing Debian for years and have never seen this before.
Sure would like to figure this out so let me know if you do.

Wayne

--
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on
the continuing viability of FORTRAN.
-- Alan Perlis
_______________________________________________________

[Scott Gifford]

Mitchell Laks <ml...@post.harvard.edu> writes:

[...]

> 1) I don't know what this means.

It means you can't hit CTRL-Z to suspend a process, move processes to
the foreground and background, or use the jobs command. See the JOB
CONTROL section of bash(1) for more details.

Not sure what causes it, but I always (and only) see it when I boot
for emergency recovery with "init=/bin/sh".

> 2) I don't know what causes it.

It may have something to do with your terminal.

> 3) It bothers me (I dont know why. Just in principle!).

It's fairly harmless, but very annoying, especially if you get stuck
and need to kill something.

> 4) So if I really want that job control thingy back, what do I have to do.

Depending on what's caused it to break, you could look at your
terminal configuration, try using the "set -m" command to turn job
control back on, starting up another shell, or using screen(1).

> I figure it is a left over from some mess up of my . files. But
> Professor Google has not clued me in to know what causes this.

To find out, create a brand new user with default dotfiles, and try
logging in as that user.

Hope this helps,

----Scott.

[Mitchell Laks]

On 12:51 Mon 07 Jan , Scott Gifford wrote:
>
> To find out, create a brand new user with default dotfiles, and try
> logging in as that user.
>
> Hope this helps,
>

No such luck :(.

Every user who initially logs in to tty1 gets the no job control message!

Here is some information.

I find that for ANY user on the system - including root
if they log in via tty1 they get that message

-bash:no job control in this shell

while if ANY user logs on to the system via tty2-tty6 they don't get that message!

Moreover in that same tty1, if the
say the root user does
su - mlaks then we have this output

-su:no job control in this shell

So it has to do with tty1.
Now I notice that this inittab file says

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6

# Example how to put a getty on a serial line (for a terminal)
#
#T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 9600 vt100
#T1:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS1 9600 vt100

# Example how to put a getty on a modem line.
#
#T3:23:respawn:/sbin/mgetty -x0 -s 57600 ttyS3
#T0:23:respawn:/sbin/mgetty -x5 -s 57600 ttyS0 vt102
#-- runit begin
SV:123456:respawn:/usr/sbin/runsvdir-start
#-- runit end

but this is no different from any other debian system
that does not do this.

I am running sid.

Mitchell