xdm login behaviour

[Bruce Richardson <brichardson lineone net>]

I discovered a problem that will affect anyone using AfterStep with xdm on 
a RH 5.1 installation.  I typically use startx but I've been experimenting 
with xdm and found that it was causing me problems no matter how I played 
with .xsession etc to make the config files the same as for startx.  I 
tracked down the problem to the way xdm is logging in.  When I run startx, 
it uses the environment created by bash when I logged in.  This includes 
adding /usr/X11R6/bin to the path (in /etc/profile) and ~/bin to the path 
(in /etc/bashrc).  xdm, of course, is doing its own login and (crucially) 
doesn't add /usr/X11R6/bin to the path, which causes all kinds of problems 
and is a major oversight.

I don't know if this is true of other RH versions.  I'll do a bit more 
searching to try and find the best solution to this, then let you know.