Alternative to x11/gnome3 ?

[Valeri Galtsev]

On 08/08/18 11:37, Victor Sudakov wrote:
> Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote:
>>
>>> No, this is not the way it works on Linux. Linux users don't run
>>> startx from a text session, nor do they switch between GUI sessions
>>> with Ctrl-Alt-Fn.  They click "Switch user" and the graphical login
>>> screen appears where you can get authenticated.
>>
>> 	You can use startx and Ctrl-Alt-Fn in Linux to do this, at least
>> you could last time I used Linux and X.
> 
> You can but nobody does because it's inconvenient and contraintuitive
> for the majority of users.

I for one do it occasionally. On multi-user number crunchers in the 
server room which normally run in "runlevel 5".

> 
> Besides it's insecure unless you enable some X screen locking
> mechanism and start your X session with something like "startx & && exit"

Yes, or simpler thing does the same . Log in to virtual console then 
execute the command

exec startx

If somebody is at the keyboard in your absence and kills your X using 
Ctrl+C, then you will be logged off your virtual console session as 
well. That, BTW this is what I always do on my FreeBSD workstation 
(virtyally single user machine): same convenient, and one less process 
belonging to user root (display manager process).

Incidentally one may need to create ~/.xinitrc for that, what someone 
else had mentioned. My ~/.xinitrc on workstation has one line:

exec mate-session


Thanks.
Valeri

> 

-- 
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Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
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