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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