Re: starting X apps after boot with no login
* Urs Thuermann:
> For an embedded system with some X11 application I'd like to start X
> and these application as part of the boot process without having to
> log into xdm/gdm/kdm. I could write a script in /etc/init.d that
> calls startx for this purpose but I'd like to know if there's a debian
> way to do this.
I don't know about The Debian Way, but my way would be to leverage
mingetty autologin functionality: Install mingetty, change
/etc/inittab to use mingetty --autologin <some_user>, then start X and
the applications from the user shell init scripts/X init scripts.
The resulting setup is as close as possible from an actual user login
in and starting everything manually. It's also quite easy to provide
a release version which do everything automatically as well as a dev
version which allow the developer to take control in the process.
Looking at mingetty's manpage, I also see there is a --loginprog that
can be used to change the login program - maybe it can prove useful.
The package rungetty seems designed for this use, and getty seems to
be able to do this, too.
Some (all?) of the various ?dm also provide autologin functionality,
but I don't see any reason to use it in such a situation - It'll only
add more complexity to the setup.
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