[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#526009: xfce4-utils: sessions started with startxfce4 lose hal/dbus functionality

Scott Barker scott at mostlylinux.ca
Tue Sep 1 19:53:42 UTC 2009


Just to bring this bug report back to it's original focus, I note that 
bugs 526006 and 520720 have been closed, and consolekit has been changed 
to properly use ck-launch-session for users of startx at the console. 
There are now many ways to start xfce4 at the console with a correct 
consolekit session, but the two best seem to be:

1) The "Debian" way:

Set xfce4-session as the default session manager for X (with 
update-alternatives) and use "startx" at the console to start xfce4. 
This will provide a minimal xfce4 session. For a more complete xfce4 
session, the user can put "exec /usr/bin/startxfce4" in $HOME/.xsession, 
so that various environment variables are set correctly for xfce4.

2) The "xfce4" way:

Put "exec ck-launch-session /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc" in 
$HOME/.config/xfce4/xinitrc, make $HOME/.config/xfce4/xinitrc 
executable, and use "startxfce4" to start xfce4. This will ensure the 
various environment variables are set correctly for xfce4, and will also 
ensure that a correct consolekit session is started.

For either method, libpam-ck-connector can be installed or not 
installed, it doesn't matter.

For method 2), perhaps one day the xfce4 developers will include 
ck-launch-session in the startxfce4 script (as they did for dbus), and 
then the xinitrc customization will no longer be necessary.

For users of gdm/kdm/xdm, I do not know if it is possible to get more 
than the minimal xfce4 session - it will depend if those display 
managers call startxfce4 and/or set the correct environment variables. 
As I don't use gdm/kdm/xdm, I cannot test that.

-- 
Scott Barker       scott at mostlylinux.ca
Linux Consultant   http://www.mostlylinux.ca/scott






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