Terminal Emulator Opens in Root (Slackware 14.1 stable, Xfce)
 

So, for some strange reason, logged in as "me," startx, open Terminal Emulator and it opens as me in root (not in /home/me) -- the log in opens in my home directory.

Huh.

Deleted the launcher, created a new one, same thing.

Huh.

Go on a bug hunt, can't find anything (obvious) in either ~/.cache or ~/.config. Tried other log ins, no problem.

Huh.

OK, past experience with Xfce, delete ~/.cache, stop X, log out, log back in, startx, problem gone.

Huh.

Question is, how the heck does this happen -- Xfce glitch? Me fumble-fingering something? Magic? Only thing I've done different or new is the past 24 hours is use growisofs to burn a couple of DVDs and I can't imagine that caused any problem (never knew there was such a thing as growisofs until yesterday, found out about it after problems with K3b -- don't burn many DVDs as a rule -- thanks to Didier Spaier).

How the heck did this happen?

this happen to me a long time ago when I did a mirror of one of my slackware systems and moved it was also strange never figured it out either still scratching my head.

If you go into "Preferences" for the terminal app and check "Run Command as Login Shell" does the problem go away? If it does it might be something in your xintric or xfce's session manager is changing the current working directory.

I always run the terminal emulator as a login shell, I do a lot of command line and text work and a login shell guarantees my desired environment settings. So, given that, I suppose a login shell didn't make any difference. Too, I don't have ~/.xinitrc files in any of the accounts on the system; I use KornShell exclusively and there is a ~/.kshrc file (that sets a couple of aliases, a ~/.exrc that set modes for vi and a ~/.profile that sets a couple of paths and the like (these files have been in use for at least 15 years with virtually no change made to them from System 3 to System V to Solaris to Slackware).

I did "fix" the problem by blowing away the ~/.cache directory (not much of a fix but prior experience with Xfce taught that removing the cache cleaned up various problems. Quickly. I'm just wondering what the heck caused it in the first place (I have never, ever seen that behavior on any Unix or Linux system since, oh, the early 1980's). It's a concern when I can't figure out how it happened (I looked though the entire shell history of every login account I've used over the past week for some hint and there's nothing there that looks remotely responsible -- and I can't duplicate it either).

Tiz a puzzlement.

As of today, 27 Apr, this has happened again. Open a terminal, I'm in root (the actual root, not root's home). I can cd and I'm in my actual home directory:
Seems like something, somewhere is doing this (no idea what) and I don't want to blow away the ~/.cache directory -- which has been the "fix" -- without chasing down what's causing it.

Looking at /home/trona/.cache/sessions/xfce4-session-fubar:0 I see:
Which makes no sense whatsoever.

Anybody have any ideas (other than blow away ~/.cache)?

Well, I've dug around all over the place trying to identify the cause and have come up empty.

Easy solution: rm -r ~/.cache.

Phooey.

Surprising how often that "fixes" stuff.

Random and unpredictable behaviour/breakage used to be the province of MS Windows. This used to happen to me with KDE apps and the ~/.kde directory, but it's sad to see it spreading to other linux desktop environments as well. :(

There's something to be said for sticking with a basic window-manager and 'xterm'. You'll probably get labelled a 'Luddite' by the unenlightened, but you never have to deal with nonsense like this.

Ah, but it still is.
Uh, yeah. That's why I abandoned KDE two release or so ago.
Naw. Wouldn't go quite that far. Plain ol' xterm? No, thanks, I'll put up with the random breakage, methinks.

Still, gotta wonder what and why, eh?