xprofile

Related articles:
• xinitrc

An xprofile file, ~/.xprofile and /etc/xprofile, allows you to execute commands at the beginning of the X user session - before the window manager is started.

The xprofile file is similar in style to xinitrc.

1 Compatibility

The xprofile files are natively sourced by the following display managers:

• GDM - /etc/gdm/Xsession
• KDM - /usr/share/config/kdm/Xsession
• LightDM - /etc/lightdm/Xsession
• LXDM - /etc/lxdm/Xsession
• SDDM - /usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsession

1.1 Sourcing xprofile from a session started with xinit

It is possible to source xprofile from a session started with one of the following programs:

• startx
• xinit
• XDM
• SLiM
• Any other display manager which uses ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc

All of these execute, directly or indirectly, ~/.xinitrc or /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc if it does not exist. That is why xprofile has to be sourced from these files.

~/.xinitrc and /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

#!/bin/sh

# Make sure this is before the 'exec' command or it won't be sourced.
[ -f /etc/xprofile ] && source /etc/xprofile
[ -f ~/.xprofile ] && source ~/.xprofile

...

2 Configuration

Firstly, create the file ~/.xprofile if it does not exist already. Then, simply add the commands for the programs you wish to start with the session. See below:

~/.xprofile

tint2 &
nm-applet &

3 Acknowledgement

This wiki article is based on ArchWiki. We may have removed non-FSDG bits from it.