Xfce Forum

stephan0h

Member

Registered: 2009-02-20

Posts: 1

Remove ALL autostarted programs - How?

Hello Forum,

I'm rather new to xfce - and one thing I find very annoying is that after login a lot of applications get started so that my desktop is all cluttered with windows. I don't want this and would like to start with a clean empty desktop. How can I do this?

I'm using xubuntu, latest version.

Thanks a lot,
Stephan

FredTMetcalf

Member

Registered: 2009-02-17

Posts: 4

Re: Remove ALL autostarted programs - How?

As a recent convert to xfce, I also encountered this problem.  It has been solved (almost completely) as follows:

1) Create a script to open all the applications you want started at login time.  I used wmctrl to set the correct workspace for each application and inserted delays which were appropriate (this requires some experimentation).

Here's a snippet of that script (which I called xfce_Startup):

====================================
#!/bin/sh

# Timings:
shortSleep="0.5"
longSleep="1.5"
veryLongSleep="25"

# Open  cmd-line window:
/bin/sleep $longSleep
/usr/bin/wmctrl -s 0
/bin/sleep $longSleep
/usr/bin/konsole <options inserted here> &
/bin/sleep $longSleep

# Start firefox browser:
/usr/bin/wmctrl -s 7
/usr/bin/firefox &
/bin/sleep $veryLongSleep

...
=================================

2) Clear off all applications from your workspaces and set the session to be saved:

Settings -> Sessions and Startup -> Automatically save session -> ON

3) Logout of the session, saving the "blank" session.

4) Login back in and, using Alt-F2 to start and application, run the script created in Step 1.

While I haven't tried it yet, adding this script to the Autostart list should, in theory, handle Step 4 automatically.

FredTMetcalf

Member

Registered: 2009-02-17

Posts: 4

Re: Remove ALL autostarted programs - How?

Oops!  I forgot to mention the part of Step 4 which prevents the problem from happening once again:  turn the Autosaving OFF.