Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!BRILLIG.UMD.EDU!israel
From: israel@BRILLIG.UMD.EDU (Bruce Israel)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: emacs as a login shell
Message-ID: <8811291901.AA10623@brillig.umd.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 88 19:01:47 GMT
Sender: daemon@eddie.MIT.EDU
Lines: 27


   From: think!compass!worley@eddie.mit.edu (Dale Worley)

   Is there anyone out there who uses Emacs as his login shell?

I wouldn't.  What if you want to login from a dialup or something?  With a
regular shell, you can set the  term type afterwards, but if emacs is your
login shell, then it'll come back with something like: 

    emacs: Terminal type "su" is not powerful enough to run Emacs.
    It lacks the ability to position the cursor.
    If that is not the actual type of terminal you have,
    use the C-shell command `setenv TERM ...' to specify the correct type.
    It may be necessary to do `unsetenv TERMCAP' as well.

and just exit.  What I would do is put something at the end of my .login
which says something like:

if ("$term" != "su" && "$term" != "sd" && "$term" != "network") then
	exec emacs
endif

I do a similar thing when using a window system (suntools, X) on a sun.
It checks to make sure that I'm on the console of a sun before replacing my
login shell with the relacement program.

Bruce