Re: GNOME crashes when .xsession file is present.

[Javier Vasquez <j.e.vasquez.v@gmail.com>]

On 4/14/10, Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:55:18 +0530, Disc Magnet wrote:
>
>> So, how do I prevent it from crashing and successfully log in?
>
> Curious is that I don't have such file in my home (running Lenny and
> GNOME here) :-?
>
> Anyway, what is the full content of your "~/.xsession" file and what is
> your final purpose, I mean, what do you want to achieve with that file?
>
> Greetings,
>
> --
> Camaleón

~/.xsession is recognized by the Xsession usually located at
/etc/X11/xdm/Xsession or /etc/X11/xinit/Xsession.  gdm, usually comes
with a link to it, and it is called by default.  Xsession will look
for several files, one of them being ~/.xsession.

If ~/.xsession is not present, then gdm will pick one of the desktops
found under /etc/X11/sessions or /usr/share/xsessions, etc., being
gnome the default, but gdm allows selecting which one...

If ~/.xsession is found, you can indicate what things to do at first
prior to call the window manager (such as xrdb, autocutsel, xmodmap,
xsetbg, xsetroot, etc...).  The final thing it does is calling the
window manager.  If you want to go with the approach of ~/.xsession,
and still use gnome, then the last thing you should include is "exec
gnome-session", or "exec startkde", or "exec startfluxbox", etc.  This
is pretty useful for those not using desktop environment, so they
instead call something lik "exec startfluxbox" or "exec fvwm2", or the
call for whatever window manager of their preference.

For those not using gdm neither kdm, then they're more familiar with
it, perhaps because of using xdm, slim, or plain startx.  startx uses
~/.xinitrc instead, so usually what one creates is ~/.xinitrc, and
~/.xsession is just a symlink to it, but one then needs to provide
executing access to ~/.xinitrc.  This approach will simplify things
when one wants to enable both startx and a login session manager such
as xdm or slim, etc.

So to me the most standard way to setup the X session is through
default scripts, Xinit and Xsession.  I'm not sure why the desktop
environments had to provide their own ways, :-)  Any ways, that's what
gdm uses, and kdm has similar way also (though I'm not sure if kdm
also allows a default which also looks for Xsession)...


-- 
Javier.