Starting xterm as a DOS Command Prompt one-liner

Starting xterm as a DOS Command Prompt one-liner

[Fergus Daly]

This one-line DOS command to start an xterm terminal:
D:\cygwin> bin\run bin\XWin -clipboard -nolock -multiwindow 2> nul & 
timeout 4 > nul 2> nul & 
bin\xterm -display :0.0 2> nul & 
bin\kill -KILL -- -1
(broken here after each "&" for clarity of presentation only) works, and is a
neat and convenient alternative to starting xterm at the bash or mintty prompt
with the single line
$ /bin/xinit /bin/xterm -- -nolock -multiwindow 2> /dev/null
(The "> nul" phrases in all the above just suppress notifications.)
Question 1:
I find the timeout .. chunk necessary to give XWin enough time to load
before the xterm .. chunk draws upon it.
Is there a different conjunction to "&" that says "wait till this is
enacted before moving on" (which is actually what I thought "&" did!)?
Question 2:
The final kill .. chunk only operates after the xterm terminal is closed,
and its purpose is to kill XWin, which otherwise hangs about.
Is there some other way of assuring that the un-needed XWin is killed,
maybe (I dunno) by adding a qualifier to the initial "run XWin" chunk?
Thank you!

RE: Starting xterm as a DOS Command Prompt one-liner

[Fergus Daly]

> This one-line DOS command to start an xterm terminal:
> D:\cygwin> bin\run bin\XWin -clipboard -nolock -multiwindow 2> nul &
> timeout 4 > nul 2> nul &
> bin\xterm -display :0.0 2> nul &
> bin\kill -KILL -- -1
> (broken here after each "&" for clarity of presentation only) works, ..

As a trivial postscript: starting xterm from Windows with the single line
above is as frugal a start-up as any I have come across: ps gives
      PID    PPID    PGID     WINPID   TTY         UID    STIME COMMAND
     1122    1121    1122       7232  pty0      197609 13:57:34 /usr/bin/ps
     1120       1    1120      12216  cons0     197609 13:57:32 /usr/bin/xterm
     1115       1    1115      11964  ?         197609 13:57:30 /usr/bin/XWin
     1121    1120    1121       4228  pty0      197609 13:57:32 /usr/bin/bash
i.e. just 1 x bash + 1 x XWin + 1 x xterm.

Even the one-line xterm startup
$ xinit xterm -- -nolock -multiwindow
from a bash shell, recently shared here, gives the somewhat lengthy
      PID    PPID    PGID     WINPID   TTY         UID    STIME COMMAND
     1745    1739    1745       3548  ?         197609 14:01:42 /usr/bin/xterm
     1740    1739    1740       6564  cons0     197609 14:01:41 /usr/bin/XWin
     1737       1    1737      10976  cons0     197609 13:59:39 /usr/bin/bash
     1739    1737    1739      12004  cons0     197609 14:01:41 /usr/bin/xinit
     1748    1747    1748       6800  pty1      197609 14:01:44 /usr/bin/ps
     1746    1745    1746      10316  pty0      197609 14:01:42 /usr/bin/xterm
     1747    1746    1747       8820  pty1      197609 14:01:42 /usr/bin/bash
i.e. 2 x bash + 1 x xinit + 1 x XWin + 2 x xterm.

BTW the switch -clipboard is redundant in the proffered line above, its omission
rendering the sequence shorter still.