On 23-Aug-00 Viktor Rosenfeld wrote: > I just logged in with my user name accidentelly in CAPS and the system > let me log in. More suprisingly, everything that is printed on the > terminal is in CAPS, too, including everything I type in lower case. > > Is this a bug or a feature? Or is it a feature that used to be a bug?
Well, it's a feature, and it was never a bug (though these days you might plead that it's a bug which used to be a feature). The point goes back to the very early days of UNIX, when the user was quite likely to be logging in from a very primitive teletype that could only do capitals (5- or 6-bit serial line). UNIX was set up to recognise login with capital letters and use capitals for the rest of the session, precisely to handle this. That's the explanation. I suppose even now there may be some rare cases where it is still useful. And I suppose that one could envisage an option for the "login" entry in /etc/inittab which could suppress the behaviour. But it's hardly worth it: if it happens, just press ^D and log in again. Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 284 7749 Date: 24-Aug-00 Time: 20:54:43 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
