• hhh
  • Caught in the Vortex
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  • From: Port Salerno
  • Registered: 2010-08-04
  • Posts: 970

Topic: [RESOLVED] Help me with minimal session and mounting partitions

I've read everything I can find and I still don't quite understand permissions for mounting other partitions in a minimal environment without adding fstab entries. Here I'm using cwm as a WM on wheezy with Thunar as a file manager and gdm3 as a DM, but I get the same behavior on squeeze with gdm, or using another minimal WM like evilwm.

Example...

http://ompldr.org/tYjhnYw

This is what I want, which I believe is the default #! behavior for both Openbox/Xfce (it's definitely the behavior in a full Xfce environment)... I open Thunar, it sees my other partitions, I click a partition, it asks me for a root password which I enter and then the partition mounts. None of the 3 other partitions (Windows and 2 Linux) are listed in fstab.

I tried to get this behavior without a display manager by using this line at the end of .xinitrc...

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch cwm

... but although Thunar showed my other partitions (I think, I've run the session changing one variable so many times I'm losing track), clicking on one would just give a "Permission Required" (or similar) error.  Also, if I use the ck-launch-session dbus-launch commands, I get new dbus-daemons appearing without the old ones closing every time I logout/in.

I installed gdm3 using --no-install-recommends and then did the same with metacity to workaround the stupid bug in gdm3 where the cursor shows the spinning hourglass no matter what. Then I got what I wanted by using an .xprofile file like so...

#!/bin/sh
sh ~/.fehbg
numlockx &
xcompmgr -c &
/usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1 &

This is acceptable, but is it right? Why do I have to use gdm3? Why do I have to manually start polkit? I've seen dbus-daemon appear twice in lxtask before, but dbus-launch?

I have 2 unrealtedrelated questions which I'll add here... In the Arch Wiki and other places I've come across, the command for Feh to reset the background image is sh ~/.fehbg & , but if I add the & my wallpaper won't appear until I open a terminal or do some other action.

Also, everything I come across says to make .xinitrc/.xsession/.xprofile executable, and to use exec before the window manager line (exec cwm instead of just cwm), but it doesn't seem to matter if I do either, the behavior is the same, as in the session starts no problem.

Confused as usual!

Last edited by hhh (2011-11-15 20:21:03)

  • From: California, USA
  • Registered: 2008-11-29
  • Posts: 8,647

Re: [RESOLVED] Help me with minimal session and mounting partitions

hhh wrote:

This is acceptable, but is it right? Why do I have to use gdm3? Why do I have to manually start polkit? I've seen dbus-daemon appear twice in lxtask before, but dbus-launch?

Did you try using plain gdm (aka version 2)? Or maybe lightdm?

What about using no DM and then launching policykit manually?

hhh wrote:

I have 2 unrealtedrelated questions which I'll add here... In the Arch Wiki and other places I've come across, the command for Feh to reset the background image is sh ~/.fehbg & , but if I add the & my wallpaper won't appear until I open a terminal or do some other action.

If you leave it out and run it from a terminal after logging in, does it work immediately?

Also try this command instead:

eval `cat $HOME/.fehbg`
hhh wrote:

Also, everything I come across says to make .xinitrc/.xsession/.xprofile executable, and to use exec before the window manager line (exec cwm instead of just cwm), but it doesn't seem to matter if I do either, the behavior is the same, as in the session starts no problem.

The Arch wiki says using exec is recommend but not necessary.

I do not know its effects for starting a DE/WM, but if you open a terminal and run "exec someprogram", closing someprogram will also close the terminal.

Note: ** Please read before posting **

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  • From: inside Ed
  • Registered: 2011-07-25
  • Posts: 2,865

Re: [RESOLVED] Help me with minimal session and mounting partitions

I struggled with similar stuff. Try to put in .xinitrc

eval 'dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit with session'
exec ck-launch-session cwm

At the end.

LVM | Catalyst | Wireless
  • hhh
  • Caught in the Vortex
  • Offline
  • From: Port Salerno
  • Registered: 2010-08-04
  • Posts: 970

Re: [RESOLVED] Help me with minimal session and mounting partitions

I was away for the weekend. Thanks for the responses, gents!

So I checked again and without gdm my partitions don't show up in Thunar, even with koraco's lines added. I guess the dm is setting up users slightly differently?

@anonymous, I installed lightdm --no-install-recommends and everything looks good (1 instance of dbus-launch and 1 of dbus-daemon showing in running tasks) if I start policykit and my other programs from .xsessionrc. Thanks so much for the suggestion.

With Slim, however, the partitions still don't show in Thunar, but this wiki page has info that I didn't try as lightdm was working for me and I was tired of experimenting...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SLiM#PolicyKit

Cheers!