Xfce4 Session is a session manager for Xfce. Its task is to save the state of your desktop (opened applications and their location) and restore it during a next startup. You can create several different sessions and choose one of them on startup.
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
Development versions of BLFS may not build or run some packages properly if LFS or dependencies have been updated since the most recent stable versions of the books.
Download (HTTP): https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/xfce4-session/4.18/xfce4-session-4.18.3.tar.bz2
Download MD5 sum: dfdcb697a2315168e2e56a70f17a19b7
Download size: 856 KB
Estimated disk space required: 16 MB
Estimated build time: 0.1 SBU
libwnck-43.0 and libxfce4ui-4.18.4
desktop-file-utils-0.27, xfce4-screensaver or XScreenSaver-6.08, shared-mime-info-2.2 and polkit-gnome-0.105
Install Xfce4 Session by running the following commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--disable-legacy-sm &&
makeThis package does not come with a test suite.
Now, as the root user:
make install
--disable-legacy-sm: This switch disables
legacy session management which isn't necessary on modern
system.
There are several optional run time dependencies for Xfce4: dbus-1.14.10, GnuPG-2.4.3, hicolor-icon-theme-0.17, OpenSSH-9.5p1, and xinit-1.4.2
When building an Xfce4 package, some
configuration files are installed in
/usr/share/applications,
/usr/share/icons, and
/usr/share/mime. In order to use those files in your
Xfce4 session, you need to update various
databases. Do that by running, as the
root user (you need to have the recommended dependencies
installed):
update-desktop-database && update-mime-database /usr/share/mime
You can start Xfce4 from a TTY using xinit-1.4.2, or from a graphical display manager, such as lightdm-1.32.0.
To start Xfce4 using xinit-1.4.2, run the following commands:
cat > ~/.xinitrc << "EOF"
dbus-launch --exit-with-x11 startxfce4
EOF
startxThe X session starts on the first unused virtual terminal, normally vt7. You can switch to another vtn simultaneously pressing the keys Ctrl-Alt-Fn (n=1, 2, ...). To switch back to the X session, normally started at vt7, use Ctrl-Alt-F7. The vt where the command startx was executed will display many messages, including X starting messages, applications automatically started with the session, and eventually, some warning and error messages. You may prefer to redirect those messages to a log file, which not only will keep the initial vt uncluttered, but can also be used for debugging purposes. This can be done starting X with:
startx &> ~/.x-session-errors
When shutting down or rebooting, the shutdown messages appear on the vt where X was running. If you wish to see those messages, simultaneously press keys Alt-F7 (assuming that X was running on vt7).