Re: Whats the alternative to .xinitrc

[<tomas@tuxteam.de>]

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On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 01:13:09PM +0000, Rob Brewer wrote:
> tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> 
> > 
> > On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 01:32:37PM +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> >> On 2017-02-20 12:49:34 +0100, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > 
> > [...blah...]
> > 
> >> > See man (5) Xsession and poke a bit through the scripts in
> >> > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/, then have a look at /etc/X11/Xsession.options,
> >> > then at /etc/X11/Xsession.
> >> 
> >> I don't see any contradiction to what I've said. Note that I haven't
> >> mentioned .xsessionrc at all, only .xinitrc, which is a different
> >> thing.
> > 
> 
> Thank you for your explanations, I must admit that I didn't expect it to be 
> so involved. I seem to remember mapping out the X startup processes a number 
> of years ago but I was running RedHat then, so I suppose it has changed a 
> lot in the meantime.

Actually, I find it not to be that involved, once the requirements
are laid out:

 - system wide configuration. If you change this, changes arrive at
   the users *unless* they have overridden something

 - per-user configuration (remember: when this was designed,
   several users were using one machine AT THE SAME TIME! Magic!
   Yikes!  That's something modern DEs seem to forget and re-discover
   from time to time, each time piling one more lay... *PLOP*
   uh, yes, Aunt Tillie. I'll take my meds)

Where was I? Ah, yes. You have some config in /etc (which just
started as one shell script, /etc/X11/Xsession -- note you can
just replace this one and be done).

Then you source from this script whatever snippet the user has
put into its own home dir under .xsession (or .xsessionrc, local
flavours vary).

Then you separate out the config variables which users most probably
want to change into Xsession.options. I guess this is a fairly
"modern" thing.

Then you add (in Debian-typical manner) a subdirectory
/etc/X11/Xsession.d for snippets belonging to different packages
with a stake in the session, to help them not to step on each
other's toes. Of course it makes sense to put the user session
snippet loading here.

This is a design pattern you will find over and over again,
with variations (e.g. no user snippet, etc.).

Regards
- -- tomás
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