Fwd: Bug#292078: kdebase: startkde does not check lnusertemp's result?

[Juergen Pfennig]

On Mon 15.01.2007 23:57, Sune Vuorela wrote:
> A debian user reported this a long time ago to the debian bts, but the
> issue still applies. (original link: http://bugs.debian.org/293078 - but
> relevant info pasted below )
>
> It has a patch for a issue about not handling possible errors in the calls
> to lnusertmp in the startkde-script.
> He writes:
...
> /Sune

Hi Sune
just saw your patch but I don't like it. (I guess your patch is intended for 
kde 3.x). It increases the number of processes that are to be started until 
KDE is up and running. Even on a stream-lined Debian Etch system around 1800 
processes get started from boot until KDE is ready.

So let's try no to increase the number of processes.

In this case: your patch uses 'which lnusertemp' thereby starting an 
additional process. Instead it could be more efficient to analyse the return 
code. Shouldn't bash/dash return 127 if a program was not found? And the [ 
(or test) operator is a bash built-in and should be a built-in also for 
dash - dash is Debian's/Ubuntu's incarnation of /bin/sh.

Does the author of startkde read this? The script contains some UNIX style 
assumptions that will not remain valid in future:

(1) $HOME $KDEDIR and so are not quoted, so these names may not contain
    spaces or other char confusing the shell.
(2) $USER is not quoted. Might (utf-8 encoded) user names contain chars
    that can confuse the shell?
(3) more missing quotes ...

Does it make sense to clean these things up for kde 3.x or are these clean ups 
even relevant for kde 4?

Yours Jürgen