Replying to one's own message on the same day... sign of not enough research having been done on my part. Sorry; here's the update:
On Oct 15, Nick Cabatoff wrote: > At the top of /etc/X11/Xsession, a comment is given: > > # global Xsession file -- used by both xdm and xinit (startx) > > However, neither xinit or startx appear to be aware of its existence. > Does anyone know whether this is a question of the comment being > obsolete, ahead of its time, or simply wrong? I didn't see the /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc link, which points to Xsession, and which is used if the user has no .xinitrc file. However, this still seems fishy to me... for one thing, Xsession will use the user's .xsession file regardless of where it was called from, which isn't the standard behaviour for startx/xinit. Moreover, the existence of a .xinitrc will prevent the system Xsession file from being used when running startx, whereas the presence of a .xsession file doesn't prevent Xsession from being used. It seems to me that if Xsession is intended to be universal, then the current setup should be changed. I'm willing to make the changes if the maintainer is too busy, but I first want to be reassured that others are in agreement with me.