curl pipe script forks a new Terminal window

Question

I have a script which unexplainably forks a new Terminal instance on some Linux distributions... I'd rather it doesn't do this. Oddly, when I run the script directly (./install.sh) the additional Terminal instance doesn't get created.

curl qz.sh | bash # warning this will install a Linux Desktop App you may not want :)

• On MacOS Mojave: Works normally
• On Ubuntu 22.04: Works normally in a VM
• On Fedora 34: Works normally in a VM
• On Ubuntu 20.10: Reportedly spawns a new terminal
• On Manjaro XFCE: Works ok until it reaches the sudo ... command in the script and spawns a new Terminal instance

Full source code here.

The code in question is as follows:

# Install using unattended techniques: https://github.com/qzind/tray/wiki/deployment
echo -e "Download successful, beginning the install..."
case $OSTYPE in
    "darwin"*)
        # Assume .pkg (installer) for MacOS
        sudo installer -pkg "$TEMP_FILE" -target /
        ;;
    *)
        # Assume .run (makeself) for others
        if which sudo >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
            # use "sudo" if available
            sudo bash "$TEMP_FILE" -- -y
        else
            # fallback to "su -c"
            su root -c "bash '$TEMP_FILE' -- -y"
        fi
        ;;
esac

Question: Why does this spawn a new Terminal instance in some environments and how can I prevent this from happening?

Answer 1

The reason a terminal isn't created when running the installer directly is that makeself uses tty -s to determine whether it's already running in a terminal or not, see the source code on GitHub. When running curl qz.sh | bash you're opening a pipe that's not there when running the script directly, causing the tty -s test to fail.

To prevent the terminal from being opened, you can use makeself's --nox11 flag, citing the README:

--nox11 : Disable the automatic spawning of a new terminal in X11.