Package: gdm Version: 2.20.3-2 Followup-For: Bug #367117
I raised this concern with x11-common (or whatever is the name of the package that contains /etc/X11/Xsession which gdm does not use for reasons that completely escape my comprehention). The reasoning is that it's not gdm's responsibility to track various shell initialization files. Some poeple want their .profile, or ..bash_profile executed at startup. However, if your shell is tcsh it is not run prior starting a X terminal emulator as all the xdm/gdm/kdm/startx scripts are sh scripts. On the other hand, the Xsession script should ensure that all system initialization files for at least one shell are executed. Since installing a shell init script fragment is the standard way of setting up environment variables or aliases for packages that need them, these settings should be included. Not only after a terminal emulator launches, all the programs that are automatically started in a X session (such as the window manager or panel that provides a "run" command) should see the settings. To provide for user customization the .xsessionrc support has been added to the x11-common. However, gdm uses its own scripts so this customization does not work with gdm. I would expect that this would not work with kdm either, nor the gdm's .xprofile. If gdm has its own session why kdm, entrance or all the other half dozen dms would not? Of course, this means you need about then startup files. Or a .Xsession or .xsession which works almost universally but overrides the system session completely. None of the system X session init fragments is run so you have to either find and run them manually or duplicate the functionality to the extent that satisfies your needs for the moment. There is no provision I am aware of to run your own wm after the system shell and X session init fragments are all executed. Also this whole mess is undocumented. There are some man pages for the x11-base stuff, and gdm is perhaps "self documented" by listing all the possible options on some configuration file hidden in an obscure location. Sure, all the stuff is text files and shell scripts. But I do not want to locate, decipher and debug various configuration files and scripts for each method of logging in. It is the work of Debian to make switching dms just the matter of installing a different package. However, this would be possible only if exhaustive documentation of the session init exists both for the package maintainers and the users so that packages use the same scripts consistently and users know what scripts to set up. Thanks Michal -- System Information: Debian Release: lenny/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-3-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core) Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages gdm depends on: ii adduser 3.105 add and remove users and groups ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.19 Debian configuration management sy ii gksu 2.0.0-5 graphical frontend to su ii icewm [x-window-manager] 1.2.33-1 wonderful Win95-OS/2-Motif-like wi ii libart-2.0-2 2.3.20-1 Library of functions for 2D graphi ii libatk1.0-0 1.20.0-1 The ATK accessibility toolkit ii libattr1 1:2.4.41-1 Extended attribute shared library ii libc6 2.7-6 GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii libcairo2 1.4.14-1 The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra ii libdbus-1-3 1.1.2-1 simple interprocess messaging syst ii libdbus-glib-1-2 0.74-1 simple interprocess messaging syst ii libdmx1 1:1.0.2-2 X11 Distributed Multihead extensio ii libfontconfig1 2.5.0-2 generic font configuration library ii libglade2-0 1:2.6.2-1 library to load .glade files at ru ii libglib2.0-0 2.14.6-1 The GLib library of C routines ii libgnomecanvas2-0 2.20.1.1-1 A powerful object-oriented display ii libgtk2.0-0 2.12.5-2 The GTK+ graphical user interface ii libpam-modules 0.99.7.1-5 Pluggable Authentication Modules f ii libpam-runtime 0.99.7.1-5 Runtime support for the PAM librar ii libpam0g 0.99.7.1-5 Pluggable Authentication Modules l ii libpango1.0-0 1.18.4-1 Layout and rendering of internatio ii librsvg2-2 2.20.0-1 SAX-based renderer library for SVG ii librsvg2-common 2.20.0-1 SAX-based renderer library for SVG ii libselinux1 2.0.35-1 SELinux shared libraries ii libwrap0 7.6.dbs-14 Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra ii libx11-6 2:1.0.3-7 X11 client-side library ii libxau6 1:1.0.3-2 X11 authorisation library ii libxdmcp6 1:1.0.2-2 X11 Display Manager Control Protoc ii libxext6 1:1.0.3-2 X11 miscellaneous extension librar ii libxi6 2:1.1.3-1 X11 Input extension library ii libxinerama1 1:1.0.2-1 X11 Xinerama extension library ii libxml2 2.6.31.dfsg-1 GNOME XML library ii lsb-base 3.1-24 Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip ii rxvt-unicode [x-terminal-e 9.02-1 RXVT-like terminal emulator with U ii xterm [x-terminal-emulator 231-1 X terminal emulator Versions of packages gdm recommends: ii gdm-themes 0.5.1 Themes for the GNOME Display Manag ii whiptail 0.52.2-11.1 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe ii xserver-xephyr 2:1.3.0.0.dfsg-12lenny2 Next Generation Nested X Server ii xserver-xorg 1:7.3+10 the X.Org X server ii zenity 2.20.1-1 Display graphical dialog boxes fro -- debconf-show failed -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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