Re: what goes into .xinitrc and what into .xsession

[olet@ifi.uio.no (Ole J. Tetlie)]

* Daniel Martin at cush <dtm12@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
|
| It is a bit confusing, isn't it.
| Here's the situation under Debian:
|  If you start X with startx, then:
|    first it tries to do the stuff in your .xinitrc; if you don't have
|    one, it goes and invokes the system xinitrc, which on Debian goes 
|    and does what happens when you use xdm to start X.
|  If you start X with xdm (the graphical login screen):
|    It does the stuff in the system-wide Xsession.  On Debian, this
|    does nice things like suck in your ~/.Xresources file if you have
|    one and then if you have your own ~/.xsession, goes and does that -
|    if you don't have your own ~/.xsession, it tries to start an xterm
|    and whatever you have set up as the default window manager for your 
|    system.

Good explanation, but just to clarify a little more:

* .xinitrc is read every time X is started. If you use xdm, X is not
  started when you log in. (It's running all the time)

* .xsession is read for each "session", that is for each time
  you log in.

-- 
Ole


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