xfrun4 ("Run application" dialog) does not use PATH to run application

[RomanIvanov]

XUbuntu 8.10. I have Eclipse installed(unzipped) under my home folder (/home/romani/java/Eclipse34/eclipse).
I add this folder to .bashrc file
"
export PATH=$PATH:/home/romani/java/Eclipse34/eclipse
"

Press Alt+F2 and type "eclipse", press Enter -> Error message that such file does not exist.

To check correctness of PATH - open terminal and type "eclipse" ->Eclipse is launching.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Did you log out and log back in? .bashrc does not restart by itself, to the best of my knowledge.

[RomanIvanov (ivanov-jr)]

yes I did it, I lived with this problem for weeks, and did workaround by making link and placing it /usr/bin folder. Doe you have problem with reproducing the bug? Feel free to connect me for this issue it is still pain a bit.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

I can confirm this bug. If you open a terminal and type "set >> ~/Desktop/set_text.txt" , a file is created that contains all the items in SET. PATH= will be included in this text file.
/home/charlie
If you use Alt+F2 instead to run the same command, it will give you an error message :
The command "set >> ~/Desktop/set_text.txt" failed to run:
Failed to execute child process "set" (No such file or directory)

If "Run in terminal" is checked in the run Program box, a terminal window will open, no error will appear, and no prompt will appear in the terminal.

It appears that Alt+F2 (Run Program) does not see the .bashrc file, and may not use bash/dash at all.

[GeekSmith (lixo-geeksmith)]

In xfrun-dialog.c, it's passing a NULL envp argument to xfce_gdk_spawn_on_screen(). Why not grab the user's path, or even the entire user environment, and pass it in here? Seems like this would solve it pretty quick.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

GeekSmith: Can you write a patch for that? I am neither a developer or programmer. If it is simple, can you help fix this issue? That would be great, and I am sure the developers would appreciate the help. Thanks. Just attach the patch using 'add attachment or patch' under the comments box.

[GeekSmith (lixo-geeksmith)]

Will do when I get a chance next week.

[GeekSmith (lixo-geeksmith)]

This patch should grab the user's PATH from the environment and send it up the chain. The user will need to make sure that PATH is set properly and available to xfrun.

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Please forward this patch upstream. Thanks!

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for the patch. This bug and patch has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments at: http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6362

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Response from Xfce developers on this bug:

 Brian J. Tarricone editbugs 2010-04-03 09:15:09 UTC

No bug here. NULL in envp means "use the current environment." Likely xfrun4
is getting started by dbus-daemon, which is getting started before the user's
PATH is getting set up. Or, more likely, ~/.bashrc isn't sourced by Xfce's
init script. You'll need to get the directory in PATH via some other means.

[GeekSmith (lixo-geeksmith)]

OK, my bad. One standard thing I do on my machines is add the following line near the top of /etc/profile:
PATH=~/bin:$PATH

And that puts everything I want in my path. This may also be accomplished by putting this line in ~/.profile, depending on your shell.

Setting this in .bashrc does not work because login shells don't read rc files, they read profile files. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_shell#Configuration_files_for_shells

I suggest the user try setting PATH in a profile file instead of an rc file.

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Marked as invalid upstream, so we won't introduce any delta for that (moreover there's an easy workaround).