On Thu, Nov 05, 2009 at 10:49:44PM +0100, Polytropon wrote: > On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 23:01:19 -0800 (PST), Alexandre L. wrote: > > mmm. I don't know. But with this config file, XFCE4 launch is OK > > (or seems OK). > > That may be possible, as well as correct. > > I have learned - many many years ago, so it may already have changed - > that .xinitrc is a SHELL SCRIPT that is executed on X startup. So all > the "rules" for shell scripts do apply, such as declaring the > interpreter with the #! special comment. Furthermore, .xinitrc serves > as a kind of "init process", so that the "exec" statement is needed to > replace the .xinitrc process by the window manager.
That's always been my understanding, but if you examine the startx script, you'll see otherwise. From xinit(1): If no specific client program is given on the command line, xinit will look for a file in the user's home directory called .xinitrc to run as a shell script to start up client programs ... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The interpretation being that .xinitrc can be an ordinary file, but should be written to follow certain syntax rules (not unlike /etc/rc.conf). An example to illustrate: $ echo 'var="Hello World"; echo $var' > filename $ sh filename Hello World Put simply, .xinitrc does not need a shebang line, and does not need to be executable. A simple 'exec ...' statement as the final line will suffice. -- George _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"