[Gimp-developer] $HOME

[Klaus Ethgen]

Hello,

the first think I always do when a new version of gimp is out I have to
fix the $HOME problem. So as this is a little problem in source with a
big impact to the usability of gimp (in special environments) I think
that should be fixed upstream.

To go in the detail. Gimp is one of nearly the only one application
using g_get_home_dir to get the home directory of the user. This
directory is not necessary existing. But (on unix, I have no idea about
windows or other ill think) the home directory is specified always in
the environment variable $HOME and this variable is used in all other
applications except gimp. Also the X-windows system ist using this
variable. So the description that g_get_home_dir would be more often
defined as $HOME is absolutely wrong as without $HOME pointing to a
user home directory X would not work and so gimp too.

The special case. If you use pam to tune the $HOME setting to
determinate the home directory in runtime it will work in every
application except gimp. Also if you are a user logged in (with ssh)
without home directory, which can be in seldom circumstances, you can
set your $HOME to a temporary path and are able to work locally (except
with gimp).

So please use the patch I apply to this mail to fix this issue in gimp.
Note that also the description of g_get_home_dir advises this solution.

Regards
   Klaus Ethgen
-- 
Klaus Ethgen                            http://www.ethgen.de/
pub  2048R/D1A4EDE5 2000-02-26 Klaus Ethgen <Klaus at Ethgen.de>
Fingerprint: D7 67 71 C4 99 A6 D4 FE  EA 40 30 57 3C 88 26 2B
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