I am trying to understand the different ways that programs can be run at startup. What has sparked my interest is that I am experimenting with different windows managers, yet I would like some basic things (xmms, xscreensaver, gkrellm, etc.) to be launched upon entry into any window manager. Yet aside from getting specific answers to specific questions, I'm hoping to understand the big picture here. So here's what I understand so far, gleaned from this list's archive. Please help me correct my misconceptions and patch my ignorance:
/etc/profile Runs a program upon login of any user, any WM, in or out of X. I have, for example, xmms here so that xmms starts up regardless of user, which is what I want. It tries and fails to launch xmms even if the user is logging in to a console, so I should move this to a file that executes programs only if logging in under X. Is there such a file? If not, is there a way I can condition the launching of xmms (or any program that requires X) upon X being running? /etc/rc.local (-> /etc/rc.d/rc.local) Said to do the same as /etc/profile, but I can't get it to work, nor do I understand when one would use this vs. /etc/profile. ~/.xinitrc Runs a program upon a particular user starting X. Only works if you login at a console and then start X manually. ~/.bashrc Runs a program every time a particular user opens a terminal, assuming he uses bash. ~/.bash_profile Runs a program upon login of a particular user, any WM, in or out of X. I haven't mastered this yet as sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. As with /etc/profile, I'd like to find a way to condition the launching of a program that requires X upon X being running. And of course many WMs have their own ways of launching programs on startup, such a placing things in ~/Desktop/Autostart. I'm not considering them here because for the moment I am looking for WM-independent ways to launch programs. So... what else is there to know about running programs at startup? -- Warren Post, Registered Linux user 241394 Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras http://srcopan.vze.com/
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