How to create custom X sessions.

[Stormy Eyes]

I've created a HOWTO for Custom X Sessions on the Wiki. Please post all comments and questions here.

[zipmegabyte]

Man, that was awesome! You're good with documentation, are you a teacher? Please keep up the good work. I'll try this guide out when I get tired of watching Naruto. ^__^

Thank you!

[Stormy Eyes]

Man, that was awesome! You're good with documentation, are you a teacher? Please keep up the good work.

Thank you. I'm not a teacher, though; I'm a programmer by trade who writes as a hobby.

[5-HT]

Thanks a lot for for the tutorial!

You've managed to easily demystify X session scripts for me.


Just one quick question though (bear in mind that I've just started learning shell scripts, so this may seem rather stupid)...

Is there a reason for using

 #!/usr/bin/env bash

instead of

 #!/bin/bash

to specify the shell used?

[Stormy Eyes]

Thanks a lot for for the tutorial!

You've managed to easily demystify X session scripts for me.

You're welcome! I'm glad it helped you.

Is there a reason for using

 #!/usr/bin/env bash

instead of

 #!/bin/bash

to specify the shell used?

It's just a Stormy-ism, really. I remember reading somewhere that while bash isn't always installed in /bin, just about every linux machine out there has /usr/bin/env, which will invoke whatever shell is passed to it as an argument. I've seen other scripts use it as well, and just copied.

[chugru]

Nice tutorial!

I'm really ok with the KDE X session in kubuntu.

I would, however, like to set up my box such that, by default, I boot only to console and then must bring up KDE with the startx command.

Could you please mention what such a modification would require?

Thanks...

[5-HT]

Nice tutorial!

I'm really ok with the KDE X session in kubuntu.

I would, however, like to set up my box such that, by default, I boot only to console and then must bring up KDE with the startx command.

Could you please mention what such a modification would require?

Thanks...

There seem to be a few ways to do this.

1.
One would be to simply uninstall kdm (or gdm, xdm for that matter).

Uninstalling kdm will also remove the kubuntu-desktop meta-package. Don't worry about that, nothing apart from the meta-package itself will be affected.

It is strongly recommended to reinstall kubuntu-desktop prior to upgrading, however, to avoid possible problems that may come up during an upgrade.

Once kdm is removed, you'll boot into console and startx will bring up whatever you have specified in .xinitrc.


2.
Another way to stop the gdm daemon from starting automatically on boot is described in this thread.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=141071

You'll have to replace any instance of gdm with kdm.
Also, I haven't tried this method myself so I wouldn't be any good at troubleshooting or know if this will work for kdm as well (though I believe it should).

3.
Other methods involve messing around with runlevels, but I have no experience with such. However, there are some threads around pertaining to the topic.

Hope that helps

It's just a Stormy-ism, really...

Thanks for the info (didn't realize you responded until chugru made this post).

[slavik]

great tutorial. I have only one question.

I plan on running firefox in X (only firefox) and was wondering how I can kill X (and restart it) when firefox dies.

[HiddenFly]

great tutorial. I have only one question.

I plan on running firefox in X (only firefox) and was wondering how I can kill X (and restart it) when firefox dies.

Just press CTRL+ALT+DEL and X will restart itself.

[slavik]

No, I want it automatic, because firefox can be killed with ALT+F4