UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How does X windows system launch a program?

Does X give init a command (fork) or does x give BASH a command? Can/does X interact with init directly or does everything go through BASH?

Thanks in advance!

Consider that in either way you suggest, it'd be done through a fork().

But how things get run really depends on how you run them... I don't think the X server runs anything directly aside from what's in your ~/.xinitrc, which gets parsed as a script file... Once X is done logging you in, what things are run how is entirely up to the control of application programs.

Did I ever manage to answer your questions in the other thread?

If init needs the fork command to start a new process , what is inbetween clicking a mouse button and starting the new process? Which alreadly occuring process issues the fork command?


On the topic of the last topic I was able to form my own definiton of what is a terminal and what is console I think.

Thanks in advance!

Init unlikely ever starts X clients. Init is a low level process. Clients are launched by X11 initialization scripts or later by user interaction with existing clients.
That can be a window manager, a desktop environment component or whatever process.

Anything can fork(), not just init. X runs applications or a window manager when it starts and those applications fork().