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In a message dated: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 01:28:34 EST
"Derek D. Martin" said:

>> And why don't startx/xinit and the session managers just use the same 
>> config file?
>
>Because they don't do the same thing.

Well, but they do, sorta.

>One is for when your X session is started by a session manager like xdm, and
>the other is for when X is started manually.

I understand that, however, for as long as I can remember, my 
.xinitrc file has been a symlink to my .xsession file, and I have 
always maintained just 1 file, and it's always "just worked" (tm).

>This comes in handy for such things as, say, debugging why your X session
>won't start, or when X exits as soon as it starts.

Why do you need 2 separate files to debug why your X session won't work?

>When this happens, often the only way you can fix the
>problem (because of X constantly respawning) is to log in remotely and
>reboot to a runlevel that doesn't use X.  Then, to test, you use a
>fairly basic startx, and make incremental changes until you figure out
>what's broken.

That's a fairly complex and convoluted way of debugging X, especially 
if the problems are specific your config files.  Why not just use the 
built-in failsafe log in, or, with Linux, a virtual terminal?

>There are potentially other uses for having different sessions too.

I don't disagree with that, I just don't see why one needs separate 
.xinitrc and .xsession files.

>I may be mistaken (since I'm too lazy to go look at the standalone
>HP-UX box two rooms away from my desk) but AFAIK .Xclients is NOT
>specific to Red Hat; I believe it's part of the standard start-up
>scripts for both xinit (xinitrc, which can be in one of about 100
>directories on Unix systems) and xdm (Xsession, likewise).  Those
>programs prefer $HOME/.xinitrc and $HOME/.xsession, respectively; but
>if the respective file doesn't exist, BOTH programs will look for
>$HOME/.Xclients.

Yup, my later man page perusal confirmed this.

>The only other file of interest from the perspective of X, besides
>those three, which might appear in your home directory is the
>.Xdefaults file, to set resources.

Right, got that one covered!

>Well, there's also the .Xauthority file, but well-configured systems deal
>with that automatically, because dealing with X-MIT-MAGIC-COOKIEs is too
>esoteric for most typical computer users (and perhaps even most atypical computer
>users).

Yeah, I'll agree with that.  That crap is too esoteric for *ME*, and 
I usually thrive on esoteric :)
- -- 

Seeya,
Paul


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