[Ryedale] Executing scripts on login

[Paul Teasdale]

On Tuesday 12 February 2008 09:11, Al Girling wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> On Sat, Oct 20, 2007 at 05:07:15PM BST, Al Girling wrote:
>
> --%<--
>
> > From what I've read it should be a simple matter of adding the script
> > name to .bash_profile and the next time I log in the script will be run.
> > This doesn't happen, so I'm running it from .bashrc, which is OK, but
> > means everytime I open another term/shell the script is run.
> >
> > Can anyone tell me if .bash_profile is the correct place to run this
> > from or if you have other info which might be helpful.
>
> This took a little solving as all the normal start-up file failed to
> work.  It seems that my choice of GNOME as desktop is the cause as it
> calls its start-up files from ~/.config/autostart/ which are created
> from Desktop > Preferences > Sessions which has a tab Startup Programmes
> which is self explanatory.  This works, but means that if I choose to
> install another window manager I'll probably have to set up other files
> and when trying .xsession discovered the presence of .xsession prevented
> the GUI login from working.
>
> Any way, progress was made and the problem solved.
>
Hi Al,

It is possible to use $HOME/.xsession but it took a little reading of the 
manual to work out exactly what you need to do. If you do a 'man xsession' 
or 'man xinitrc' there is a clue in each of these manual pages.

If you want to start things up globally for every user then you can add extra 
script files in /etc/X11/Xsession.d. You need to make sure that the name of 
your file comes before 99x11-common_start. So for example you could add a 
file called 98my_local_stuff and type your startup scripts into this file. 
The files in this directory are actually sourced rather than executed but 
that does not matter. All it means is they will get executed in the same 
shell rather than a new shell for each script file. Furthermore if you were 
to put #!/bin/bash, for example, at the top of the file you created it will 
be ignored.

If you want to start things up on a per user basis then you can use 
$HOME/.xsession by creating the file and typing your startup script in that. 
As an administrator is possible to turn the use of the $HOME/.xsession file 
on or off in /etc/X11/Xsession.options by specifying the 
setting "allow-user-xsession". In Debian Etch this is on by default meaning 
that if the file exists it will be used.

The key bit of information is knowing that when you specify a $HOME/.xsession 
file you must tell X what to do after the file is dealt with otherwise 
execution will end and nothing happens and that's why your GUI did not start 
up. Therefore the last line of the $HOME/.xsession file must start the window 
manager that you want like this:

exec gnome-session 

Or 'exec fluxbox' or 'exec startkde' or whatever.

Going back to the global options in /etc/X11/Xsession.d for a second you will 
notice that the file /etc/X11/Xsession.d/99x11-common_start contains only 
this 'exec' line and that's why it's important to create a file which comes 
earlier in the list than 99x11-common_start.

I have actually tried both of these methods above and they do work. 
Furthermore I think they should work for any window manager. 

The only thing I'm not sure about is that if you specify a $HOME/.xsession 
file I'm not sure if any of the files in /etc/X11/Xsession.d get called. If 
they don't then it may mean things like gpg-agent will not get started when 
using a $HOME/.xsession file in which case you may need to start some 
additional things up for yourself. This should be fairly easy to work out.

Hope this helps,

Regards,
Paul.
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