Should mintwelcome launched from terminal exit on Ctrl+C?

[Arnaut Billings]

I have used Gnome and KDE3/4 quite extensively. I've routinely launched GUI-apps from the terminal. In all my years of such usage, I have never experienced terminal launched GUI-apps pass through signals to the terminal, include the Ctrl+C signal. Therefore I find it highly surpising and unintuitive that mintwelcome does so. (For example, launching pluma terminal, Ctlr+C doesn't terminate the GUI-app, it actually copies the selected text to the clipboard.) What are people's thoughts on this?

BTW, I have filed a bug for this here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1093713.

[Arnaut Billings]

@viking777:
This is in reply to this: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=123825&p=678805#p678799 which spawned this chat.

A sample list of additional programs that do not pass through signals to the launching terminal: kwrite, kate, Eclipse IDE, most system-config-* in RHEL, in fact most GUI-apps I can think of.

@viking777: you mentioned you tried 8 terminal launched apps that were terminated with Ctlr+C, can you list them here?

[viking777]

Arnaut, it is far easier to list the ones that aren't shut down by Ctl-c because there is only one - gnome-terminal itself. All other programs are shut down by that command. I notice that you are quoting kde programs. I only have one of those - kmymoney and it too is shut down by Ctl-c. You mention system config tools so I launched gnome-system-monitor - shut down by Ctl-c. They all are believe me, obviously Red Hat is different.

[xenopeek]

What you are falling over, and that is understandable, is that the Welcome Screen doesn't have a keyboard handler and it doesn't capture the keyboard input focus when its window is active. When you launch the Welcome Screen normally from the menu, nothing happens when you press Ctrl+C. Which you already didn't agree with, because you wanted to use Ctrl+C to copy text from the Welcome Screen window.

When you launch it from the terminal, just like any other application that you start from the terminal and that doesn't ignore the keyboard interrupt signal (SIGINT), when you press Ctrl+C while the terminal has keyboard input focus it will be terminated because the Python interpreter that is running the Welcome Screen handles the keyboard interrupt signal as it should (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control-C# ... vironments). The running Python script has no keyboard interrupt handler, so Python terminates the script as that is what the user has requested by sending the keyboard interrupt signal...

You wanted to be able to copy text from the Welcome Screen window with Ctrl+C but you can't. Something else, to you unexpected, happens. At the core of your issue then is not that the Welcome Screen closes if you tell the terminal to do that by pressing Ctrl+C, but that the Welcome Screen doesn't allow you to copy text. That's a feature request, and hence I have marked your bug report as invalid.

You can make suggestions for new features on the Community site's idea pool, or here on the forums in the suggestions & new ideas section.

[Arnaut Billings]

Ok, we maybe talking about two different things here. So I'm going to break it down, step by step, using only mate default-installed apps for starters:

Behavior 1
----------------
1) Launch Terminal from the "Start Menu".
2) Type pluma, press enter.
3) pluma, the GUI-app comes into focus.
3.1) Do nothing but just Press Ctrl+C, note pluma is not terminated.
3.2) Enter some text into pluma, press Ctlr+C, note pluma not terminated.

Yes, if I change focus back to the terminal then press Ctlr+C, then pluma is indeed terminated, but that is NOT what I am talking about. Now, contrast this with mintwelcome:

Behavior 2
----------------
1) Launch Terminal from the "Start Menu".
2) Type mintwelcome, press enter.
3) Highlight some random text in the GUI-app that was launched, press Ctlr+C, note app terminated. Note: Ctlr+C signal was passed through to the terminal even though the GUI-app was in focus.

My background: As a software developer for over a decade, who has used RHEL/Centos, OSX, and Cygwin extensively, I've up until launching mintwelcome from the terminal experienced Behavior 1. Either I've been living in the Twilight Zone, or there's some serious miscommunication going on here.

[Arnaut Billings]

@xenopeek wrote: When you launch it from the terminal, just like any other application that you start from the terminal and that doesn't ignore the keyboard interrupt signal (SIGINT), when you press Ctrl+C while the terminal has keyboard input focus

That's exactly where I think the miscommunication between us is. As I noted in my followup to the original bug report, the GUI-app (mintwelcome) terminates when Ctrl+C is pressed when it is in focus. I'm arguing that even when the GUI-app can't handle some input signal, it shouldn't pass through that signal to the launching terminal when the GUI-app is in focus.

[viking777]

Some serious miscommunication Arnault - you are right. But your last two posts have explained it to me at least. And your observations are correct and not what you would expect. But xenopeek has already explained this:

Code: Select all

Welcome Screen doesn't have a keyboard handler and it doesn't capture the keyboard input focus when its window is active

It doesn't have focus so your Ctl-c input is straight to the terminal not to mintwelcome. Not only that but I am still fully capable of copying text from the application before hitting Ctl-c and pasting it back afterwards.

Is that a bug or by design? I don't know. For me a more relevant question would be does it matter that much? Obviously it matters to you, but afaiac I had to reinstall mintwelcome just to test this out - which shows you how much it matters to me.

I am now about to uninstall it again.

But at least we understand your point now.

[Arnaut Billings]

@viking777 wrote: Is that a bug or by design? I don't know. For me a more relevant question would be does it matter that much? Obviously it matters to you, but afaiac I had to reinstall mintwelcome just to test this out - which shows you how much it matters to me.

Good question, and my answer is a resounding YES. It's highly relevant to all newbies to linux mint who want to write bug reports, and that's because the instructions on "Report a bug page" on launchpad state the following:

Linux Mint bug reporting guidelines:

Please include:

1) The version and edition of Linux Mint you are using (if you are not sure, open a terminal and run "mintwelcome").

And as a newbie to linux mint, when I do that and then try to copy the info in that Welcome Screen and get what appears to be a crash, the first thing that comes to my mind is that Linux Mint is quite immature, since the developers can't even follow their own instructions that they put forth in their bug reporting guidelines.

So yes, this issue is quite relevant, at least should be from Linux Mint's pov, because:
1) it impedes feedback from those (few?) who are willing to contribute back to the community,
2) what appears to be a crash when following explicit instructions from the distro make the distro look immature, ... which may not necessarily be true.

[altair4]

2) what appears to be a crash when following explicit instructions from the distro make the distro look immature, ... which may not necessarily be true.

As a side note, I happen to be married to a software developer ( It's like living with a female Vulcan - which at times can be interesting ... ahem ... but I digress ) so I understand and can appreciate the viewpoint expressed here but what you are doing is not explicitly stated in the instructions:

1) The version and edition of Linux Mint you are using (if you are not sure, open a terminal and run "mintwelcome").

If I run mintwelcome it will in fact tell me what the version and edition of Mint I am using. You made an implicit assumption that you could do a Ctrl+C to copy that information. I would guess that the average Linux user - especially a relatively new one - would be unaware of the Ctrl+c / Ctrl+v function.

[bjornmu]

I assumed ^C and ^V would be something someone coming from Windows would use? As a long time user of Solaris/Linux, I'd just use the mouse. Or in this case, the version spec is so short I wouldn't even bother to cut-n-paste it.

[viking777]

What I forgot to say in my previous post (but I am sure you are aware anyway) is that I am able to copy text from mintwelcome using the 'selection' method - just highlight the text with either the mouse or Ctl/Shift/Arrow key, not Ctl-c, as that obviously wont work, and then pasting with the middle mouse button. You are right in saying that an ex-windows user may not be aware of that method and not all clipboard viewer programs have it set up by default. My own manager 'clipit' has preference settings to enable/disable either one of these methods - I enable both and can therefore see both. Of course the selection method always works even if you don't have a clipboard viewer running, the function is built in, but that would be even less evident to a windows user, new to linux.

Anyway, please don't form a negative attitude of the Mint community over this matter, it really was just a communication/misunderstanding issue, which you cleared up very nicely with your later post, not one of hostility to criticism. We sometimes can get a bit upset with the "I tried Linux Mint and it sucks" brigade - and we get our fair share of those, but your criticism was a long way removed from that and founded on merit. Whether or not the Mint dev's think it merits rewriting the code for mintwelcome, I personally couldn't say, but that does give me a thought. You said in one of your posts that you have some coding skills. I don't know if your skills or available time would allow you to look at the code yourself, but if it does it is available here:

https://github.com/linuxmint/mintwelcome

Proposing changes via that route would certainly be noticed at the highest levels.