Noobe XDM questions

[Terrence Branscombe]

Kinda new to Debian, and Linux, so forgive me if this has been covered to death already, but the docs suggest that users can customize an X session simply by placing the '.xsession' file into their home directory. This is not working for me; adding an .xsession file to my home directory simply causes the XDM login widget to disappear, then reappear.

#!/bin/bash
xterm &

When this occurs my /var/log/xdm.log file contains the following entries:

Mon Apr  2 17:16:54 2007 xdm info (pid 6634): starting




Terry
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Branscombe
[skype me at 'tbranscombe']

I made the .xsession file readable and executable to the group and other users, and tried the simplest of contents: Mon Apr 2 17:17:19 2007 xdm info (pid 6634): starting X server on gondor.erebus.ca:0 Mon Apr 2 17:17:25 2007 xdm info (pid 6634): starting X server on gondor.erebus.ca:0 Mon Apr 2 17:17:25 2007 xdm info (pid 6727): not sourcing /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsetup (No such file or directory) Mon Apr 2 17:17:44 2007 xdm info (pid 6727): sourcing /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xstartup Mon Apr 2 17:17:44 2007 xdm info (pid 6754): executing session /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession Mon Apr 2 17:17:45 2007 xdm info (pid 6727): sourcing /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xreset Mon Apr 2 17:17:45 2007 xdm error (pid 6727): cannot remove process ID file /var/run/xdm.pid: Permission denied Mon Apr 2 17:17:45 2007 xdm info (pid 6634): starting X server on gondor.erebus.ca:0 I can only assume that a normal user must be granted permission to delete the xdm.pid file, but that strikes me as odd. Is there some good documentation I can read to set me straight, or some simple hints on what I should be expecting? Thanks.

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