"exit" vs. "X-ing" out of a terminal

[Clint Harshaw]

Clint Harshaw wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Some time ago, I posted a question about mysterious users that showed up 
>  when I would do a "who" at the prompt. I have a question related to 
> that issue. Is there any difference in typing "exit" to stop a terminal 
> vs. clicking on the "X" in that terminal's window? I wonder if these 
> extra users are due to my "X-ing" out of a terminal rather than typing 
> "exit" at the prompt.
> 
> Is there any harm done by "X-ing" out of the terminal?
> 
> Is there a proper way to retrieve those users remaining from a prior 
> X-out so that I could "exit" from them? (short of rebooting, I can't 
> seem to remove the extraneous users.)
> 
> Clint

My mailbox filled up and I missed the reply to this, but was able to 
read it on marc.theaimsgroup.com's archive. I am confusing users with 
open terminal sessions -- I'm the only user on this home desktop system.

When I ran who after init 1 I get this response;

charshaw pts/4        Jul 26 17:59 (:0.0)
charshaw pts/11       Jul 26 21:52 (:0.0)
charshaw pts/12       Jul 26 21:53 (:0.0)
charshaw pts/16       Jul 27 10:09 (:0.0)

when I exit init 1 and log back in, w provides me with this information:

  10:11:48 up 21:47,  6 users,  load average: 2.10, 0.96, 0.43
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
charshaw :0       -                10:11   ?xdm?  21.03s  0.62s 
/usr/bin/gnome-
charshaw pts/17   :0.0             10:11    0.00s  0.04s  0.00s w

are those pts/XX "users" terminal sessions that I "X"'d out of rather 
than typing "exit"? Is this just a non-issue that I should just get used 
to seeing?

Thanks,
Clint