Xfce Forum

j1elo

Member

Registered: 2015-09-23

Posts: 1

[SOLVED] Log out, Restart, Shutdown without xfce4-session

Hi there!
I just registered to ask about xfce4-session in a customized environment. I wrote a detailed message, with explanations of how my system is built, and how I pinpointed it to the presence or absence of the xfce4-session. Then, after a quick look at the docs, I found the answer right there. So well, I'll just say hello here instead hahah :-)

Just for the record I'll leave my original message here, and also its answer. Maybe some other guy ends up here from a Goole search, who knows...

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I am building a limited desktop experience in which the user has a very customized desktop where applications can be opened. I'm using Xfce and so far it has been a great experience! Kudos to the Xfce team for creating such a predictable and simple solution :-)

I'm currently NOT using xfce4-session, because I want total control of whatever is going to be launched at startup, and I have seen that in some cases such as a hard reset, whatever windows were open will be reopened again, even if all related options are disabled in the Session and Startup configuration dialog. So far so good, except that the lack of session is giving me a big problem: the Action Buttons panel plugin shows both "Restart" and "Shut Down" buttons as greyed-out and disabled.

Initially I thought that the cause of the problem could be some Policykit initialization, but apparently all other user actions such as mounting USB drives still work without problems.

For more info, this custom desktop is built with Openbox as a window manager, xfce4-panel as, well, a panel, Thunar as file manager and Xfsettingsd for global configuration of Xfce values. The Login Manager is NoDM, as I want a direct access to the desktop without need for any kind of user login or lock screen capability. Also there is no Consolekit, because from my experience it is not needed at all for proper working of Xfce Session (contrary to what it is said in the xfce4-session advanced page).

The NoDM login manager runs $HOME/.xsession, which in turn does

exec /usr/bin/openbox --startup /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc

This way, I can easily see what is the difference bewteen running xfce4-session or not running it, just by renaming the xfce4-session file such like:

$ sudo mv /usr/bin/xfce4-session /usr/bin/xfce4-session.disabled

Lastly, I unchecked all startup entries in Session and Startup configuration dialog: PolicyKit Authentication Agent, Power Manager, and Launch GNOME services at startup (which anyway doesn't do anything as gnome-keyring package is not installed). I tried both disabling these entries while using xfce4-session, and running them by hand while not running xfce4-session, but it is clear to me that they have nothing to do with the problem at hand. When running with xfce4-session, the Restart and Shut Down buttons are enabled. When running without xfce4-session, those buttons are disabled.

Is there anything that I'm missing? Could you please shed a bit of light on what is actually going on behind the scenes when xfce4-session launches?

---- Just before pushing on "Submit"

Oh gosh. This would be a great answer for my whole message:
"Check http://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-panel/actions"

The plugin uses xfce4-session to handle the power actions, so it won't function properly if you use another or no session manager.

Last edited by j1elo (2015-09-23 12:51:34)

johnywhy

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 288

Re: [SOLVED] Log out, Restart, Shutdown without xfce4-session

unclear why this is marked "solved". There are various things you can do without session manager:

Sleep:
systemctl suspend

Restart:
shutdown -r now

Shutdown:
shutdown now

Refresh xfce desktop:
xfce4-panel -r &

Lock desktop:
xtrlock (requires xtrlock, which has smaller footprint than other lockers)

Logout (kill xfce and drop to terminal):
[not solved yet]

Last edited by johnywhy (2019-08-29 14:19:20)

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arch xfce x86_64