How I start X

November 05, 2020

On FreeBSD and Linux I start X with startx. I don’t use a display manager, instead electing to login directly to a tty and start X explicitly. Over the years I’ve tried out a bunch of display managers. I used SLIM while it existed, and LXDM after that, but at some point I decided that the complexity of configuring a display manager to start X just the way I like meant more work than typing startx the first time I login to my computer. I maintain a .xinitrc file which performs some setup and starts my window manager of choice - dwm.

On OpenBSD, which I occasionally experiment with, there is no startx command because something something security. OpenBSD comes with a display manager called “xenodm” (if you select it during installation), which presents you with a graphical login form, then starts X by running a file called “.xsession” in your home directory. My .session looks like this:

. ~/.profile
. ~/.xinitrc

It sources .profile to set environment variables for the window manager, then sources .xinitrc to start the window manager as per my carefully crafted configuration. Simple!