Running commands at startup

[graabein]

Hi, I have xmonad as my default session on Ubuntu 9.04 GDM. I was wondering how I can run some commands upon login? I don't have a .xinitrc file. Should I make one? Would it crash with loading xmonad as window manager?

I mainly want to run numlock and nautilus (to mount external drives).

[iponeverything]

Hi, I have xmonad as my default session on Ubuntu 9.04 GDM. I was wondering how I can run some commands upon login? I don't have a .xinitrc file. Should I make one? Would it crash with loading xmonad as window manager?

I mainly want to run numlock and nautilus (to mount external drives).

X looks for the .xinitrc in your home directory, if it does not find it, it uses /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

[graabein]

Thanks. I see it invokes global X session script in /etc/X11/Xsession:

#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/X11/Xsession
#
# global Xsession file -- used by display managers and xinit (startx)

# $Id: Xsession 967 2005-12-27 07:20:55Z dnusinow $

set -e

PROGNAME=Xsession

message () {
# pretty-print messages of arbitrary length; use xmessage if it
# is available and $DISPLAY is set
MESSAGE="$PROGNAME: $*"
echo "$MESSAGE" | fold -s -w ${COLUMNS:-80} >&2
if [ -n "$DISPLAY" ] && which xmessage > /dev/null 2>&1; then
echo "$MESSAGE" | fold -s -w ${COLUMNS:-80} | xmessage -center -file -
fi
}

message_nonl () {
# pretty-print messages of arbitrary length (no trailing newline); use
# xmessage if it is available and $DISPLAY is set
MESSAGE="$PROGNAME: $*"
echo -n "$MESSAGE" | fold -s -w ${COLUMNS:-80} >&2;
if [ -n "$DISPLAY" ] && which xmessage > /dev/null 2>&1; then
echo -n "$MESSAGE" | fold -s -w ${COLUMNS:-80} | xmessage -center -file -
fi
}

errormsg () {
# exit script with error
message "$*"
exit 1
}

internal_errormsg () {
# exit script with error; essentially a "THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN" message
# One big call to message() for the sake of xmessage; if we had two then
# the user would have dismissed the error we want reported before seeing the
# request to report it.
errormsg "$*" \
"Please report the installed version of the \"x11-common\"" \
"package and the complete text of this error message to" \
"<debian-x@lists.debian.org>."
}

# initialize variables for use by all session scripts

OPTIONFILE=/etc/X11/Xsession.options

SYSRESOURCES=/etc/X11/Xresources
USRRESOURCES=$HOME/.Xresources

SYSSESSIONDIR=/etc/X11/Xsession.d
USERXSESSION=$HOME/.xsession
USERXSESSIONRC=$HOME/.xsessionrc
ALTUSERXSESSION=$HOME/.Xsession
ERRFILE=$HOME/.xsession-errors

# attempt to create an error file; abort if we cannot
if (umask 077 && touch "$ERRFILE") 2> /dev/null && [ -w "$ERRFILE" ] &&
[ ! -L "$ERRFILE" ]; then
chmod 600 "$ERRFILE"
elif ERRFILE=$(tempfile 2> /dev/null); then
if ! ln -sf "$ERRFILE" "${TMPDIR:=/tmp}/xsession-$USER"; then
message "warning: unable to symlink \"$TMPDIR/xsession-$USER\" to" \
"\"$ERRFILE\"; look for session log/errors in" \
"\"$TMPDIR/xsession-$USER\"."
fi
else
errormsg "unable to create X session log/error file; aborting."
fi

# truncate ERRFILE if it is too big to avoid disk usage DoS
if [ "`stat -c%s \"$ERRFILE\"`" -gt 500000 ]; then
T=`mktemp -p "$HOME"`
tail -c 500000 "$ERRFILE" > "$T" && mv -f "$T" "$ERRFILE" || rm -f "$T"
fi

exec >>"$ERRFILE" 2>&1

echo "$PROGNAME: X session started for $LOGNAME at $(date)"

# sanity check; is our session script directory present?
if [ ! -d "$SYSSESSIONDIR" ]; then
errormsg "no \"$SYSSESSIONDIR\" directory found; aborting."
fi

# Attempt to create a file of non-zero length in /tmp; a full filesystem can
# cause mysterious X session failures. We do not use touch, :, or test -w
# because they won't actually create a file with contents. We also let standard
# error from tempfile and echo go to the error file to aid the user in
# determining what went wrong.
WRITE_TEST=$(tempfile)
if ! echo "*" >>"$WRITE_TEST"; then
message "warning: unable to write to ${WRITE_TEST%/*}; X session may exit" \
"with an error"
fi
rm -f "$WRITE_TEST"

# use run-parts to source every file in the session directory; we source
# instead of executing so that the variables and functions defined above
# are available to the scripts, and so that they can pass variables to each
# other
SESSIONFILES=$(run-parts --list $SYSSESSIONDIR)
if [ -n "$SESSIONFILES" ]; then
set +e
for SESSIONFILE in $SESSIONFILES; do
. $SESSIONFILE
done
set -e
fi

exit 0

# vim:set ai et sts=2 sw=2 tw=80:

Should I create USERXSESSION=$HOME/.xsession or USERXSESSIONRC=$HOME/.xsessionrc and insert commands there?

[iponeverything]

I am not sure. I would try the to create the rc one first. You can did around on google for examples.

[graabein]

Using .xsessionrc works just fine. Here's what I have now:

#!/bin/sh
numlockx on
gnome-settings-deamon &
gnome-volume-manager &


Update: Wait a tick, gnome-volume-manager does not exist on Ubuntu 9.04. What should I use?

Would dbus-launch do the trick?