It seems the xfce4-terminal has some issues with the -e option if the is more than one command given (made this major since it breaks many scripts that use the x-terminal-emulator -e alternative(eg useing ";read" to stay open) xterm/uxterm -e "sleep 5; echo a; sleep 3": opens window -> sleeps 5s -> outputs a -> sleeps 3s -> closes xfce4-terminal -e "sleep 5; echo a; sleep 3": opens window -> closes window
The parameter -e does not spawn a shell, so you will have to adjust your command: xfce4-terminal -e sh -c "sleep 5; echo a; sleep 3" Other VTE based terminals like gnome-terminal or lxterminal behave the same way.
Also i did some tests: lxterminal, sakura, xfce4-terminal, gnome terminal failed but it works on all non libvte based terminals i've tried: konsole, qterminal, eterm, terminology, xterm and its derivatives >xfce4-terminal -e sh -c "sleep 5; echo a; sleep 3" that is not a solution, since additional cmd args will break other terminals also it would make the whole x-terminal-emulator aproach pointless also isn't it a bit weird that it doesn't lauch a shell as terminal by executing shell commands? Also the introduction of the terminal says all >Terminal emulates the xterm application developed by the X Consortium Also i've reopened this bug since it doesn't do the same as xterm does, so it seems to be a bug or xfce4-terminal doesn't want to be xterm combatible in which case you should rewirte the introduction http://docs.xfce.org/apps/terminal/introduction
> also it would make the whole x-terminal-emulator aproach pointless This is a Debian only thing, or? > also isn't it a bit weird that it doesn't lauch a shell as terminal by executing > shell commands? The terminal expects a command, not a shell command. > so it seems to be a bug or xfce4-terminal doesn't want to be xterm combatible Does this sort of compatibility include runtime parameters? I suggest that you file a bug report against libvte and discuss if the current behavior should be changed.
> This is a Debian only thing, or? afaik yes, since it is part of the alternatives system/dpkg but it has been adopted by many other linux distributions(eg fedora) and is also available for (free)bsd > Does this sort of compatibility include runtime parameters? my understandig from an emulator is that it tries to emulate the program as faithful as possible since the command works in xterm and other terminals it should work on vte based terminals, too. Another reason is also that xterm is the default terminal emulator on unix systems so all scripts should be executed the same way but since vte based terminals work differently some scripts will just fail. > I suggest that you file a bug report against libvte maybe i will do that but i guess i will first create a bug report on debian to remove xfce4-terminal and vte based terminals from the alternatives system since they are incompatible - maybe they can add a workaround. regards
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=747108 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=152717 its also great that the author of bug 152717 had exactly the same issue as me in 2004, and even better it hasn't fixed since then - what a shame...
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