NAME¶
startx - initialize an X session
SYNOPSIS¶
startx [ [
client ]
options ... ] [
-- [
server ] [
display ]
options ... ]
DESCRIPTION¶
The
startx script is a front end to
xinit(1) 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
Xorg(1) server and specified in the
xorg.conf(5) configuration. 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
Note that in the Debian system, what many people traditionally put in the
.xinitrc file should go in
.xsession instead; this permits the
same X environment to be presented whether
startx,
xdm, or
xinit is used to start the X session. All discussion of the
.xinitrc file in the
xinit(1) manual page applies equally well
to
.xsession. Keep in mind that
.xinitrc is used only by
xinit(1) and completely ignored by
xdm(1).
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
/etc/X11/xinit directory.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
- 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.
FILES¶
- $(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.
- /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
- Client to run if the user has no .xinitrc file.
- /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc
- Server to run if the user has no .xserverrc file.
SEE ALSO¶
xinit(1),
X(7),
Xserver(1),
Xorg(1),
xorg.conf(5)