On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 04:52:34PM +0100, Brian wrote: > You need a ~/.xsession file when you need a ~/.xsession file. Isn't it > one purpose of the wiki to explain how it fits into the traditional X > configuration and why one might be useful. Instead, we appear to have > ~/.xsessionrc promoted as the One True Way; how did you come to that > conclusion?
Because it is the only thing that *actually works* no matter which display manager and which session type the user is running. If the user is running gdm3 and using a GNOME session and wants to add a directory to PATH, ~/.xsessionrc can do that. If the user is running startx, ~/.xsessionrc still works. If the user is running lightdm with a Debian X session, ~/.xsessionrc still works. In fact, that's why Debian *created* it. They wanted something that would Just Work. There was no existing tool that could fill that role. If you prefer ~/.xsession because you've already learned never to run gdm3, great. Go ahead and use that. I use ~/.xsession myself. I didn't even know about ~/.xsessionrc until I started down this path and someone linked to the debian-reference web page. That's where I learned about it. Its purpose was immediately clear to me. Now I have an answer for the end-user questions that have been stumping me for years... at least in #debian. #bash is another story.
