|
Table of Contents
startx - initialize an X session
startx
[ [ client ] options ... ] [ -- [ server ] options ... ]
The startx
script is a front end to xinit that provides a somewhat nicer user interface
for running a single session of the X Window System. It is often run with
no arguments.
Arguments immediately following the startx command are used
to start a client in the same manner as xinit(1)
. The special argument '--'
marks the end of client arguments and the beginning of server options. It
may be convenient to specify server options with startx to change on a
per-session basis the default color depth, the server's notion of the number
of dots-per-inch the display device presents, or take advantage of a different
server layout, as permitted by the XFree86(1)
server and specified in the
XF86Config(5)
file. Some examples of specifying server arguments follow;
consult the manual page for your X server to determine which arguments
are legal.
startx -- -depth 16
startx -- -dpi 100
startx -- -layout Multihead
To
determine the client to run, startx first looks for a file called .xinitrc
in the user's home directory. If that is not found, it uses the file xinitrc
in the xinit library directory. If command line client options are given,
they override this behavior and revert to the xinit(1)
behavior. To determine
the server to run, startx first looks for a file called .xserverrc in the
user's home directory. If that is not found, it uses the file xserverrc
in the xinit library directory. If command line server options are given,
they override this behavior and revert to the xinit(1)
behavior. Users
rarely need to provide a .xserverrc file. See the xinit(1)
manual page for
more details on the arguments.
The system-wide xinitrc and xserverrc files
are found in the /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit directory.
The .xinitrc is typically
a shell script which starts many clients according to the user's preference.
When this shell script exits, startx kills the server and performs any
other session shutdown needed. Most of the clients started by .xinitrc should
be run in the background. The last client should run in the foreground;
when it exits, the session will exit. People often choose a session manager,
window manager, or xterm as the ''magic'' client.
Below is a sample .xinitrc
that starts several applications and leaves the window manager running
as the ''last'' application. Assuming that the window manager has been configured
properly, the user then chooses the ''Exit'' menu item to shut down X.
xrdb -load $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid gray &
xbiff -geometry -430+5 &
oclock -geometry 75x75-0-0 &
xload -geometry -80-0 &
xterm -geometry +0+60 -ls &
xterm -geometry +0-100 &
xconsole -geometry -0+0 -fn 5x7 &
exec twm
- DISPLAY
- This variable gets set to the name of the
display to which clients should connect. Note that this gets set, not read.
- XAUTHORITY
- This variable, if not already defined, gets set to $(HOME)/.Xauthority.
This is to prevent the X server, if not given the -auth argument, from automatically
setting up insecure host-based authentication for the local host. See the
Xserver(1)
and Xsecurity(7)
manual pages for more information on X client/server
authentication.
- $(HOME)/.xinitrc
- Client to run. Typically a shell script
which runs many programs in the background.
- $(HOME)/.xserverrc
- Server to
run. The default is X.
- /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc
- Client to run if
the user has no .xinitrc file.
- /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xserverrc
- Server
to run if the user has no .xserverrc file.
xinit(1)
, Xserver(1)
,
XFree86(1)
Table of Contents
|
