Re: Exec programs on startup

[Warren Young <tangent cyberport com>]

Patrick Markiewicz wrote:
> 
> Edit your .xinitrc file, which probably has something like this at the
> moment:
> exec gnome-session
> Simply add the line:
> exec WhateverProgram &
> before the exec gnome-session.  

Not quite.  Only the last line should have "exec" in front of it.  exec
tells the shell to completely transfer control to the named program: the
shell script stops executing at that point.  Because you put the & after
it, however, you've managed to slip past this fact.  (It's because the
ampersand causes the shell to fork a copy of the shell before it runs
the exec, so it's the _second_ copy that stops, while the first copy
keeps running.)  Still, my advice stands: exec really only makes sense
on the last line.

Incidentally, the .xinitrc may not contain a call to gnome-session.  On
systems using xdm or one of its clones, you don't even need .xinitrc or
.Xclients.  I mention this so anyone reading your post doesn't panic
when they don't find the lines you mention, thinking they're in the
wrong place.

-- 
= Warren Young, maintainer of the Winsock Programmer's FAQ at:
=     http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent/programming/winsock/
=
= ICBM Address: 36.8274040 N, 108.0204086 W, alt. 1714m