rms@UUNET.UU.NET (Richard M. STALLMAN) (03/12/89)
We have found locally that we need the following modification to
lisp/term/x-win.el in order to get GNU emacs to start up properly with
X11. This is true on Sequent Symmetries, Sun3s, and Sun4s.
I tested Emacs 18.53 with X11 on a Sun 3 before release.
It seemed to work properly.
The change you propose only appears to work if you don't check it
completely. It introduces a bug, that C-g fails to interrupt
a program.
The fact that you proposed this change suggests that you are using
a system which has bugs in the support for SIGIO.
If I could program Emacs to work correctly on such systems I would do
so. But I believe this is impossible; certainly no one has told me
any way to do it. I will not install a half-measure in Emacs which
fixes the problem only in certain cases; if I did so, then users would
think that Emacs is simply unreliable. I would rather distribute an
Emacs that fails completely on systems with bugs than distribute one
which will only fail occasionally.
I know that some Unix system users would prefer I took a different
attitude, but remember that use on Unix is a side-benefit as far as I
am concerned. The GNU kernel, when we have one, will not have this
bug.