Linux notes

Navigation
computing: software: Linux

Overview
This page is for Linux-related loose notes which haven't yet been organized into more specific entries. They may be useful in suggesting where to look in order to solve particular problems.

session management
2007-03-17 These notes came out of solving a problem which occurred after upgrading Fedora 4 to Fedora 6, in that the machine refused to load any desktop manager other than TWM.

(Tenebram said) looks like it was ignoring the choice and just running 'default', which checks first for .xsession, and, if that's not there, runs twm... so I made a .xsession which contains 'startkde'

(Woozle said) Where is that stuff kept?

(Tenebram said) in /usr/share/gdm/ is some of it; /usr/share/xsessions/ is some more. /usr/share/gdb/BuiltInSessions/default.desktop is what was getting loaded

(Woozle said) hmm... so where is the config file which tells it the list of sessions to present (and what to do next for each one chosen)?

(Tene said) there are a couple of config files that can define SessionDesktopDir. The default is /etc/X11/sessions/:/etc/X11//dm/Sessions/:/usr/share/gdm/BuiltInSessions/:/usr/share/xsessions/ ... kde.desktop is in /usr/share/xsessions ... and defines what happens when you choose 'kde' ... it's ignoring that choice for some reason... (nope, not a permissions problem on .dmrc...)

(Woozle said) Yeah, I see the KDE and E desktop files... Just trying to figure out how the system gets to them.

(Tene said) /etc/gdm/custom.conf defines SessionDesktopDir

(Woozle said) ...it searches for .desktop files on that path you listed?

(Tene said) yes ... and apparently blatantly ignores the one you choose. ...there's also a file in /usr/share/gdm/something.conf ... with system defaults ... defaults.conf ... which, in turn, suggests making an /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf-custom file to change settings ... or you can run gdmsetup ... or choose 'setup' or 'configure' or whatever from the login manager.

...also, by the way, if you set up the login manager to accept logins from other boxes on the lan, you can choose 'remote login' in the login manager to start an X session on another box.