The xsession program is a session manager. It is normally executed by your
~/.xinitrc (or ~/.xsession) script and controls your X Window session. As
soon as it is started, xsession launches a window manager and some
applications of your choice. At anytime during your session, you may switch
to another window manager or execute some other applications from the
xsession menus.
You may also lock your screen using an independent locker application. The
window contains a message area which is used to notify the user whenever an
application or a window manager starts or ends, and also to display all the
output and error messages of the programs (the applications and the window
managers) run by xsession. The console output messages can also be shown
either in this area or in a second, separate area.
One useful feature of xsession is the preprocessing of window managers'
configuration files. When a window manager is launched, its startup file
can be filtered through m4(1) or cpp(1). Some macros are defined (such as
the host name, screen size and so on) that will help you customize your
menus and screen layout. One advantage of this feature is that several
window managers can share the same startup file: some lines are protected by
a test on the "WM_NAME" macro, but the other lines are common. This saves a
lot of time if you want to maintain the same menu structure for several of
them. You can also use "include" statements in your file.
Note: This slackbuild builds xsession without sound support. If you wish to
have sound support see the Imakefile and INSTALL files within the source
tarball.
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