Most ideal way to autostart processes

[Jani Monoses]

Hello Mario,

Mario Limonciello wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm leading the Mythbuntu effort, and for our next alpha we are
> switching over to Xfce for our base.  We were previously doing an
> openbox/feh/idesk method, but Xfce is much prettier.
> 

first of all it's nice to see getting more users, testers and devs for 
xubuntu even if indirectly :)

> So in our migration over, there were a few items that I wanted to iron
> out the proper way to do things.
> 
> = Autostarting of processes. =
> == Gnome Volume Manager ==
> We were previously using gnome-volume-manager for automounting a few
> things when necessary.  I understand Thunar can do this instead.  Does
> it need to be started, or is that handled via the startxfce4 script?
> 
Yes, thunar is started by startxfce4 and the volume manager is launched 
by thunar automatically when needed.

It is set to do so in /etc/xdg/Thunar/thunarrc

> == Gnome Screensaver ==
> I saw in my ~/.xsession-errors that there were attempts at xscreensaver
> starting, but i didn't see any references to gnome-screensaver.  It's
> listed in apt-cache rdepends on xubuntu-desktop however.  How does this
> get started?
> It's already in our dependencies, and i'll get to our old method of
> starting things at the end of the mail.
> 

This should be working, /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc tries g-s-s then x-s-s if 
the former is not available. If you have the latest xfce4-utils and 
g-s-s is not started it is a bug that needs to be looked at.

> == Network Manager ==
> We wanted to use network-manager-gnome for providing wireless
> functionality to those that wanted it.  We added it to
> /etc/xdg/mythbuntu/autostart (The XDG directory that we are starting
> things with is /etc/xdg/mythbuntu).  This works out as expected, but if
> the user has an option to save the session checked, more of these
> processes are started every time around.  Any way to avoid that?
> 

We'll add nm to default xubuntu, automatic start in Xfce needs this 
patch uploaded, hopefully the maintainer is on it.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/95064

I was holding off including it by default blocked on another patch that 
gets rid of gnome deps in nm, but since it takes too long to be reviewed 
we might just add it the next couple of days.


> == Smaller Utilities ==
> Our old session script started things like nvidia-settings -l and irexec
> -d when certain conditions were met.  Any other nice way that this
> should be done?

Are you using gdm and a desktop file in /usr/share/xsessions?
If so, I think a wrapper around startxfce4 as you have it here is the 
way to go.

Again, I am glad you picked Xfce and hopefully we'll get a better 
maintained desktop now a new bunch of devs have joined the party :)

BTW which Xubuntu apps have you dropped and what Ubuntu or other 
universe apps are you using?

thanks
Jani