Shortcuts not starting bash as login shell

[binkley]

I was trying to see bash was not sourcing the user profile files (~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile). Some poking around:

$ echo $-
himBHs
$ echo $0
/bin/bash

Contrasting with Cygwin (just an example, same result on other unix-y OSes):

$ echo $-
himBHs
$ echo $0
-bash

Unix shells treat a leading dash in argv0 as a signal to be a login shell, and source user profile files.

• Is there a way in the wslbridge command line I can provide an explicit argv0 when running /bin/bash?
• It might make sense for such an argv0 flag to be default in the shortcuts

[mintty]

Check the three desktop shortcut options provided by the wsltty package, quoting from project page:

WSL Bash % in Mintty to start a WSL bash in the Windows %USERPROFILE% home
WSL Bash ~ in Mintty to start a WSL bash in the WSL user home
WSL Bash -l in Mintty to start a WSL login bash

The latter starts a login shell by invoking /bin/bash -l.

[mintty]

Assuming things are clarified; closing.

[binkley]

OK, thanks! I'm still making some edits to the shortcut, but I'm getting what I need. :)

Some observations:

• The "WSL Bash -l" shortcut isn't appearing on my desktop, though the other two are
• The "WSL Bash -l" shortcut does not use -C~ argument, so it's like the "%" one

I'd still prefer, if possible, to set argv0 to -bash for compatibility with Linux on login, but I can work around that. Thanks, again.

[mintty]

The "WSL Bash -l" shortcut does not use -C~ argument, so it's like the "%" one

No, it uses the -l parameter, so it's not like %.

The standard Bash on Ubuntu shortcut does not start a login shell either, so the "hiding" (in the Start menu) of the WSL -l shortcut is kind of consistent.
The WSL invocation wrapper C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe can be started with an -l option, with the effect that your login .profile is activated. But $0 will still be /bin/bash then. This is an issue of that wrapper.

[athrunsun]

@mintty @binkley I'm sorry but I still don't quite understand.

Here is what is in my %LOCALAPPDATA%\wsltty\WSL~.bat:

@echo off
rem Start mintty terminal for WSL package  in current directory
%LOCALAPPDATA%\wsltty\bin\mintty.exe -i "%LOCALAPPDATA%/wsltty/wsl.ico" --WSL= -h err --configdir="%APPDATA%\wsltty" -~  

What changes should I make to obtain a login shell for wsltty?

[mintty]

You can add an explicit invocation of /bin/bash -l.

[athrunsun]

@mintty Add that explicit invocation to where?

[mintty]

To the end of the command line in the desktop shortcuts, or in your case, in the launch scripts *.bat.

[athrunsun]

@mintty Cool, it works. Thanks!

[mintty]

Released 3.1.0.