gnome-session(1) User Commands gnome-session(1)NAMEgnome-session - starts up the GNOME desktop environment
SYNOPSISgnome-session [--choose-session=MySession] [--failsafe] [--purge-
delay=delay] [--warn-delay=delay] [--suicide-delay=delay] [gnome-std-
options] [session-name]
DESCRIPTION
The gnome-session program starts up the GNOME desktop environment.
This command is typically executed by your login manager (e.g. GDM,
dtlogin, XDM, or from your X startup scripts). It will either load
your last session, or provide a default session for the user as defined
by the system administrator (or the default GNOME installation on your
system). You can optionally specify a specific session name to
restore.
gnome-session is an X11R6 session manager. It can manage GNOME applica‐
tions as well as any X11R6 SM compliant sessions. If the user has pre‐
viously saved a session, the session is loaded from the ~/.gnome2/ses‐
sion file. Various default values are provided in case this file does
not exist. If the user session file does not exist, gnome-session
will use the contents of the default.session file.
gnome-session also exports an X Atom called GNOME_SM_DESKTOP on the
root window, to indicate that gnome-session has started. Some applica‐
tions may require such information to proceed correctly.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
--choose-session=MySession User can specify a session to load, as
opposed to the session specified in the
~/.gnome/session-options file. If that
entry does not exist in the
~/.gnome/session file (or if that file
does not exist), gnome-session will use
the default session, and all saves to
that session will be to the new session
name.
--failsafe Fail-safe operations mode: gnome-ses‐
sion only reads saved sessions from the
default.session file.
--purge-delay=delay The number of milliseconds that gnome-
session will wait for clients to regis‐
ter. If delay is 0, gnome-session will
wait forever. The default value is
30,000 milliseconds.
--suicide-delay=delay The number of milliseconds that gnome-
session will wait for clients to die.
If delay is 0, gnome-session will wait
forever. The default value is 10,000
milliseconds.
--warn-delay=delay The number of milliseconds that gnome-
session will wait for clients to
respond. If delay is 0, gnome-session
will wait forever. The default value is
10,000 milliseconds.
gnome-std-options Standard options available for use with
most GNOME applications. See gnome-
std-options(5) for more information.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
session-name The name of the session to be loaded.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Starting a session named "MySession"
example% gnome-session --choose-session=MySession
Example 2: Starting the system default session, ignoring the user's
session
example% gnome-session--failsafe
Example 3: Setting the purge delay to 50000ms
example% gnome-session --purge-delay=50000
Example 4: Setting the suicide delay to 50000ms
example% gnome-session --suicide-delay=50000
Example 5: Setting the warning delay to 50000ms
example% gnome-session --warn-delay=50000
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLESgnome-session accepts all of the standard environment variables used by
GNOME programs, as well as the SESSION_MANAGER environment variable.
gnome-session also sets several environment variables for the use of
its child processes.
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables:
SESSION_MANAGER Used by session-manager-aware clients to con‐
tact gnome-session.
DISPLAY Set to the X display being used by gnome-ses‐
sion. Note that the --display option, if spec‐
ified, overrides the setting of the DISPLAY
environment variable.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Application exited successfully
>0 Application exited with failure
FILES
The following files are used by this application:
/usr/bin/gnome-session
The command-line executable for the application.
/usr/share/gnome/default.session
Location of default session file.
~/.gnome2/session-options
User session options. This file is created if the user saves a
session using gnome-session-save and specifies a different session
name than the default. The key CurrentSession in this file speci‐
fies which session to start by default.
~/.gnome2/session
User session file. This file is created if the user saves a ses‐
sion either by running gnome-session-save or by other means, such
as selecting to save session on logout.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │gnome/gnome-session │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface stability │Volatile │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOgnome-session-save(1), attributes(5), environ(5), gnome-std-options(5)NOTES
Written by Brian Cameron, Sun Microsystems Inc., 2003, 2006.
SunOS 5.11 13 Jan 2003 gnome-session(1)
