xfce4-session-4.18.3

Introduction to Xfce4 Session

Xfce4 Session is a session manager for Xfce. Its task is to save the state of your desktop (opened applications and their location) and restore it during a next startup. You can create several different sessions and choose one of them on startup.

[Note]

Note

Development versions of BLFS may not build or run some packages properly if LFS or dependencies have been updated since the most recent stable versions of the books.

Package Information

Xfce4 Session Dependencies

Required

libwnck-43.0 and libxfce4ui-4.18.6

Recommended

Required Runtime

Xfdesktop-4.18.1

Installation of Xfce4 Session

Install Xfce4 Session by running the following commands:

./configure --prefix=/usr \
            --sysconfdir=/etc \
            --disable-legacy-sm &&
make

This package does not come with a test suite.

Now, as the root user:

make install

Command Explanations

--disable-legacy-sm: This switch disables legacy session management which isn't necessary on modern system.

Configuring Xfce4 Session

There are several optional run time dependencies for Xfce4: dbus-1.14.10, GnuPG-2.4.5, hicolor-icon-theme-0.17, OpenSSH-9.7p1, and xinit-1.4.2

When building an Xfce4 package, some configuration files are installed in /usr/share/applications, /usr/share/icons, and /usr/share/mime. In order to use those files in your Xfce4 session, you need to update various databases. Do that by running, as the root user (you need to have the recommended dependencies installed):

update-desktop-database &&
update-mime-database /usr/share/mime

Starting Xfce4

You can start Xfce4 from runlevel 3, using xinit-1.4.2, or from runlevel 5, using a Display Manager, such as lightdm-1.32.0.

To start Xfce4 using xinit-1.4.2, run the following commands:

cat > ~/.xinitrc << "EOF"
dbus-launch --exit-with-x11 startxfce4
EOF

startx

The X session starts on the first unused virtual terminal, normally vt7. You can switch to another vtn simultaneously pressing the keys Ctrl-Alt-Fn (n=1, 2, ...). To switch back to the X session, normally started at vt7, use Ctrl-Alt-F7. The vt where the command startx was executed will display many messages, including X starting messages, applications automatically started with the session, and eventually, some warning and error messages. You may prefer to redirect those messages to a log file, which not only will keep the initial vt uncluttered, but can also be used for debugging purposes. This can be done starting X with:

startx &> ~/.x-session-errors
[Note]

Note

You may wish to drop dbus-launch, e.g., just using startxfce4 in ~/.xinitrc. However some capabilities such as mounting or umounting file systems from a file manager will not be possible, or the reboot option will be absent or inoperative, among other problems.

When shutting down or rebooting, the shutdown messages appear on the vt where X was running. If you wish to see those messages, simultaneously press keys Alt-F7 (assuming that X was running on vt7).

Contents

Installed Programs: startxfce4, xfce4-session, xfce4-session-logout, xfce4-session-settings, and xflock4
Installed Library: None
Installed Directories: /usr/lib/xfce4/session

Short Descriptions

startxfce4

is a script responsible for starting an Xfce session.

xfce4-session

starts up the Xfce Desktop Environment

xfce4-session-logout

logs out from Xfce

xfce4-session-settings

is a GTK+ 3 GUI which allows you to alter your preferences for your Xfce Session