[Glastonbury] gdm / GNOME startup - user preferences

[tim hall]

Me again ;-)

I thought I'd experiment with a GNOME desktop since it looks rather useable 
since the release of 2.8. I'm launching it using gdm. I'm used to using 
startx from the command line and I've discovered to my annoyance that 
my .xinitrc doesn't get read if I use gdm to launch the desktop environment.

Does anybody know what file _does_ get read that I could copy the relevant 
bash commands over to? Or would it be possible to call an arbitrary file by 
adding a script to /etc/X11/Xsession.d/? The GNOME documentation on the 
matter is unbelievably dense and leads me to think I have to create 
a .desktop file somewhere, a format I guess I'll have to get used to if I'm 
going to use GNOME. *sigh*

After openbox3, GNOME does seem to run an unnecessary amount of background 
processes, but I guess they're not hogging too much valuable CPU time. It's 
kind of cool for non RT stuff.

Does anyone here have Gnowledge of such things?

cheers

tim hall
http://glastonburymusic.org.uk