[xubuntu-users] New xubuntu install doesn't bring up X

[George F. Nemeyer]

On Mon, 8 Dec 2014, Steve Litt wrote:

> By the way, in order for a no-lightdm computer to run xfce from
startx,
> you need to put the following line in ~/.xinitrc:
>
> exec  /usr/bin/xfce4-session
>
> It does no harm to leave your .xinitrc that way after restoring lightdm:
> lightdm doesn't consult .xinitrc.

I *wish* it was as simple as that.  The solution may provide enough to
troubleshoot the original poster's problem, but what comes up will more
than likely be a crippled session with certain menu items missing,
non-functional indicators, and other strangeness.

This *appears* to be because lightdm really isn't a Display Manager...it's
an entire user session of its own, and it starts things that a normal
window manager or 'startx' won't.  Because those elements aren't there,
the user's x-session won't be fully functional, though it may look to be
there at first glance.

So far, nobody's been able to tell just *what* light-dm starts so that you
could scrap lightdm altogether for something less bloated and which
*dosen't* expose low level configuration (such as network selection,
shutdown/reboot, etc.) to non-privilaged users.