bug#72303: When emacs-pgtk fails to find a Wayland display available, it fails to run instead of opening in -nw mode

bug#72303: When emacs-pgtk fails to find a Wayland display available, it fails to run instead of opening in -nw mode

[Gunnar Wolf]

Package: emacs

I have Emacs installed in all of my systems. Paricularly, I have
emacs-pgtk all systems where I often use a graphical environment (and
emacs-nox in those where I don't).

Back when I used X11, if I started Emacs and had no $DISPLAY set, it
would open in a terminal. With emacs-pgtk, the behavior is not the
same:

    $ emacs foobar

    (emacs:3988): Gtk-WARNING **: 19:19:10.887: cannot open display:
    $

This impacted me because I neede to use a remote machine to do work
via scripts (i.e. dch, debcommit) that call /usr/bin/editor and I
found impossible to hand-specify emacs to use -nw; I ended up
installing emacs-nox, but I don't find it to be an acceptable,
transparent-enough solution.

I think emacs-pgtk should behave just as emacs-gtk, falling back to
the console if a windowed environment is not found.

Thank you in advance!

bug#72303: When emacs-pgtk fails to find a Wayland display available, it fails to run instead of opening in -nw mode

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2024 20:37:40 -0600
> From: Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.org>
> 
> Package: emacs
> 
> I have Emacs installed in all of my systems. Paricularly, I have
> emacs-pgtk all systems where I often use a graphical environment (and
> emacs-nox in those where I don't).
> 
> Back when I used X11, if I started Emacs and had no $DISPLAY set, it
> would open in a terminal. With emacs-pgtk, the behavior is not the
> same:
> 
>     $ emacs foobar
> 
>     (emacs:3988): Gtk-WARNING **: 19:19:10.887: cannot open display:
>     $
> 
> This impacted me because I neede to use a remote machine to do work
> via scripts (i.e. dch, debcommit) that call /usr/bin/editor and I
> found impossible to hand-specify emacs to use -nw; I ended up
> installing emacs-nox, but I don't find it to be an acceptable,
> transparent-enough solution.
> 
> I think emacs-pgtk should behave just as emacs-gtk, falling back to
> the console if a windowed environment is not found.

This is a known problem with the PGTK build, for which unfortunately
there's no known solution.  See bug#63555 and bug#65886.

Po Lu, it sounds like we need a PROBLEMS entry for this issue, as it
comes up very frequently.

bug#72303: When emacs-pgtk fails to find a Wayland display available, it fails to run instead of opening in -nw mode

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2024 20:37:40 -0600
>> From: Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.org>
>> 
>> Package: emacs
>> 
>> I have Emacs installed in all of my systems. Paricularly, I have
>> emacs-pgtk all systems where I often use a graphical environment (and
>> emacs-nox in those where I don't).
>> 
>> Back when I used X11, if I started Emacs and had no $DISPLAY set, it
>> would open in a terminal. With emacs-pgtk, the behavior is not the
>> same:
>> 
>>     $ emacs foobar
>> 
>>     (emacs:3988): Gtk-WARNING **: 19:19:10.887: cannot open display:
>>     $
>> 
>> This impacted me because I neede to use a remote machine to do work
>> via scripts (i.e. dch, debcommit) that call /usr/bin/editor and I
>> found impossible to hand-specify emacs to use -nw; I ended up
>> installing emacs-nox, but I don't find it to be an acceptable,
>> transparent-enough solution.
>> 
>> I think emacs-pgtk should behave just as emacs-gtk, falling back to
>> the console if a windowed environment is not found.
>
> This is a known problem with the PGTK build, for which unfortunately
> there's no known solution.  See bug#63555 and bug#65886.
>
> Po Lu, it sounds like we need a PROBLEMS entry for this issue, as it
> comes up very frequently.

Now taken care of, thanks.

bug#72303: When emacs-pgtk fails to find a Wayland display available, it fails to run instead of opening in -nw mode

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: 72303@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2024 08:48:18 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> 
> > Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2024 20:37:40 -0600
> > From: Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.org>
> > 
> > Package: emacs
> > 
> > I have Emacs installed in all of my systems. Paricularly, I have
> > emacs-pgtk all systems where I often use a graphical environment (and
> > emacs-nox in those where I don't).
> > 
> > Back when I used X11, if I started Emacs and had no $DISPLAY set, it
> > would open in a terminal. With emacs-pgtk, the behavior is not the
> > same:
> > 
> >     $ emacs foobar
> > 
> >     (emacs:3988): Gtk-WARNING **: 19:19:10.887: cannot open display:
> >     $
> > 
> > This impacted me because I neede to use a remote machine to do work
> > via scripts (i.e. dch, debcommit) that call /usr/bin/editor and I
> > found impossible to hand-specify emacs to use -nw; I ended up
> > installing emacs-nox, but I don't find it to be an acceptable,
> > transparent-enough solution.
> > 
> > I think emacs-pgtk should behave just as emacs-gtk, falling back to
> > the console if a windowed environment is not found.
> 
> This is a known problem with the PGTK build, for which unfortunately
> there's no known solution.  See bug#63555 and bug#65886.
> 
> Po Lu, it sounds like we need a PROBLEMS entry for this issue, as it
> comes up very frequently.

With the PROBLEMS entry now added, I'm closing this bug.