On Wed 13 Aug 2014 at 00:03:54 -0600, Bob Proulx wrote: > Brian wrote: > > > > A "correctly" set up X on Debian uses ~/.xsession and not ~/.xinitrc. > > (I kept the quotes because you said they are significant). > > Brian, I can't tell if you are joking or not. :-) But obviously a > correctly set up X could use either a .xsession file or a .xinitrc > file. The choice depends upon what is trying to be achieved. And
We know that using startx with ~/.xsession means files in Xsession.d at /etc/X11 are sourced and that using ~/.xinitrc means those files are not sourced. The man page for startx says: To determine the client to run, startx first looks for a file called .xinitrc in the user's home directory. If that is not found, it uses the file xinitrc in the xinit library directory. The system-wide xinitrc and xserverrc files are found in the /etc/X11/xinit directory. If ~/.xinitrc is found /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc is not used. Because of system design a ~/.xsession is likely to lead to users encountering fewer problems and having less grief. If there is a counter argument for recommending ~/.xinitrc for the majority of users I have yet to see it spelled out. If the benefits of ~/.xsession do not matter to a user then purposefully setting out to avoid Xsession.d and to handle everything in ~/.xinitrc would be ok. The issue is that, AFAICS, such purpose is usually not stated and ~/.xinitrc is recommended on the basis of historical usage with little regard for how Debian structures X. The web is awash with advice to use ~/.xinitrc, which is fine for Arch Linux users but suboptimal for most people with Debian and startx. > I know you are aware that there is also the .xsessionrc file too. With ~/.xsession this file (if it exists) is automatically sourced; ~/.xinitrc would have to be told about it. This is a situation where the lazy route is to be preferred. :) (I have seen it advised to put 'xterm &' and 'exec WindowManager' in .xsessionrc. Following the advice usually leads to great wailing and gnashing of teeth). > I use a .xsession file when using one of the xdm programs. But since > recently when gnome and gdm abandoned my hardware I have been using > xinit again and an .xinitrc file. It is working correctly in that > combination. For your setup I'm sure it does. But try getting power management to work with Xfce and the same setup as a Wheezy user. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140813165134.ge22...@copernicus.demon.co.uk
