Xfce Forum

pnelsonsr

Member

Registered: 2013-04-26

Posts: 6

[Solved] The making startx start xfce

Switch from gnome3 on a Fedora19 system.  But startx starts gnome3 and I (instinctively) make the mistake of running startx rather than startxfce4.  I guess I would like a startgnome3 and a startxfce4 script but I would really like startx to start xfce.  Any advice?

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: [Solved] The making startx start xfce

Have a look at the .xinitrc file in your home directory. You should be able to specify there which desktop environment you want as default (via startx).

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pnelsonsr

Member

Registered: 2013-04-26

Posts: 6

Re: [Solved] The making startx start xfce

So there was no ~/.xinitrc so I went looking for the default which seems to be /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc which calls /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients where desktops gnome and kde are shown set to be exec'ed using /etc/sysconfig/desktop file (which doesn't exist either so it defaults to gnome) and a $PREFERRED variable. 

So I created a ~/.xinitrc file with just "exec startxfce4" in it and although this works I'm wondering if this is the standard way?

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: [Solved] The making startx start xfce

So I created a ~/.xinitrc file with just "exec startxfce4" in it and although this works I'm wondering if this is the standard way?

I've always known this to be the standard way. There is also this document which seems to support this.

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pnelsonsr

Member

Registered: 2013-04-26

Posts: 6

Re: [Solved] The making startx start xfce

Great!

Sideburns

Member

From: Trinidad, CO

Registered: 2011-03-30

Posts: 467

Website

Re: [Solved] The making startx start xfce

Two comments.  First, you could always use startxfce4 directly, which is what I do on the rare occasions I have to start (or, more likely, try to start) X from a CLI.  Second, add this to ~/.bashrc:

alias startx=startxfce4

Of course, if you use a different shell, put it in the appropriate file.  Then, log out, log back in and Bjorn Stronginthearm's your uncle!

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