STARTX(1)						      General Commands Manual							 STARTX(1)

NAME

       startx - initialize an X session

SYNOPSIS

       startx [ [ client ] options ... ] [ -- [ server ] [ display ] options ... ]

DESCRIPTION

       The  startx  script is a front end to xinit that provides a somewhat nicer user interface for running a single session of the X Window Sys-
       tem.  It is often run with no arguments.

       Arguments immediately following the startx command are used to start a client in the same manner as xinit(1).  The  special  argument  '--'
       marks  the  end	of  client  arguments  and the beginning of server options.  It may be convenient to specify server options with startx to
       change on a per-session basis the default color depth, the server's notion of the number of dots-per-inch the display device  presents,	or
       take  advantage	of a different server layout, as permitted by the Xorg(1) server and specified in the xorg.conf(5) file.  Some examples of
       specifying server arguments follow; consult the manual page for your X server to determine which arguments are legal.

	      startx -- -depth 16

	      startx -- -dpi 100

	      startx -- -layout Multihead

       To determine the client to run, startx first looks for a file called .xinitrc in the user's home directory.  If that is not found, it  uses
       the file xinitrc in the xinit library directory.

       If command line client options are given, they override this behavior and revert to the xinit(1) behavior.  To determine the server to run,
       startx first looks for a file called .xserverrc in the user's home directory.  If that is not found, it uses  the  file	xserverrc  in  the
       xinit library directory.  If command line server options are given, they override this behavior and revert to the xinit(1) behavior.  Users
       rarely need to provide a .xserverrc file.  See the xinit(1) manual page for more details on the arguments.

       The system-wide xinitrc and xserverrc files are found in the /etc/X11/xinit directory.

       The .xinitrc is typically a shell script which starts many clients according to the user's  preference.	 When  this  shell  script  exits,
       startx kills the server and performs any other session shutdown needed.	Most of the clients started by .xinitrc should be run in the back-
       ground.	The last client should run in the foreground; when it exits, the session will exit.  People often choose a session manager, window
       manager, or xterm as the ''magic'' client.

EXAMPLE

       Below  is  a  sample .xinitrc that starts several applications and leaves the window manager running as the ''last'' application.  Assuming
       that the window manager has been configured properly, the user then chooses the ''Exit'' menu item to shut down X.

	   xrdb -load $HOME/.Xresources
	   xsetroot -solid gray &
	   xbiff -geometry -430+5 &
	   oclock -geometry 75x75-0-0 &
	   xload -geometry -80-0 &
	   xterm -geometry +0+60 -ls &
	   xterm -geometry +0-100 &
	   xconsole -geometry -0+0 -fn 5x7 &
	   exec twm

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       DISPLAY			This variable gets set to the name of the display to which clients should connect.  Note that this gets  set,  not
				read.

       XAUTHORITY		This  variable,  if not already defined, gets set to $(HOME)/.Xauthority.  This is to prevent the X server, if not
				given the -auth argument, from automatically setting up insecure host-based authentication  for  the  local  host.
				See the Xserver(1) and Xsecurity(7) manual pages for more information on X client/server authentication.

FILES

       $(HOME)/.xinitrc 	Client to run.	Typically a shell script which runs many programs in the background.

       $(HOME)/.xserverrc	Server to run.	The default is X.

       /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc	Client to run if the user has no .xinitrc file.

       /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc Server to run if the user has no .xserverrc file.

SEE ALSO

       xinit(1), Xserver(1), Xorg(1)

X Version 11							    xinit 1.1.1 							 STARTX(1)