Instead of using a desktop manager, you can also auto login from the console. If you use bash, you can put the following in your ~/.bash_profile
:
if [ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ] ; then startxfce4 fi
This will start Xfce if you login from the first console. For properly registering the ConsoleKit session, you probably want to add --with-ck-launch
with startxfce4
(new since Xfce 4.10). Read the section below for more information.
By default xfce4-session tries to start the gpg- or ssh-agent. To disable this run the following commands:
xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /startup/ssh-agent/enabled -n -t bool -s false xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /startup/gpg-agent/enabled -n -t bool -s false
To force the ssh-agent
instead of the gpg-agent
use the following command:
xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /startup/ssh-agent/type -n -t string -s ssh-agent
In case you want to use gnome-keyring enable the Launch GNOME services on startup in the Advanced tab of the settings dialog. If you do this xfce4-session will not attempt to start the gpg- or ssh-agent.
The Xfce Desktop requires an active ConsoleKit session to function properly. ConsoleKit is used for system actions like shutdown, suspend and (un)mounting devices (through Polkit for authorization). In case you use a desktop manager, the DM will take care of that. For console starts this is a bit different.
ck-list-sessions
. Make sure active = TRUE
and is-local = TRUE
. If not, check if the consolekit library is loaded by PAM.startxfce4 --with-ck-launch
. This will start xfce4-session with ck-launch-session. In 4.10, Xfce4-sesion will take care of the dbus-session launch.ck-list-sessions
, a second session is created that should give you all required permissions to mount devices and execute power actions (depending per-distribution, you might need to add yourself to various user groups).Xfce now uses the Basedir Specification as defined on Freedesktop.org to locate its data and configuration files. This means that file locations will be specified as a path relative to the directories described in the specification.
~/.config/
.${sysconfdir}/xdg/
and /etc/xdg/
. The value of ${sysconfdir}
depends on how the program was build and will often be /etc/
for binary packages.~/Desktop/Autostart
, which contained scripts and symbolic links to applications. If you run xfce4-session 4.4 or above for the first time, it will automatically migrate the autostart items from the old location to the standard location and place a LOCATION-CHANGED.txt file in the old directory, that describes the location change.
The session manager offers support for the Kiosk Mode, that helps to prevent users from making changes to their session settings. To use it you have to edit or create the file ${sysconfdir}/xdg/xfce4/kiosk/kioskrc
.
The way to explain the format of this file is by using an example. The xfce4-session section of your kioskrc
file might look like this:
[xfce4-session] CustomizeSplash=ALL CustomizeChooser=ALL CustomizeLogout=ALL CustomizeCompatibility=%wheel Shutdown=%wheel CustomizeSecurity=NONE
This allows all users to change their splash, chooser and logout settings, but allows only users in the group wheel
to customize the compatibility settings and shutdown the system. No one will be allowed to adjust the security settings.
The session manager supports the following KIOSK capabilities: