General discussion • Autostart with labwc

This is aimed at those waiting for an update to my guide to running a program at start up.

I'm posting this in the hope it will stop folks chasing for a new revision of that guide and/or claiming "it is completely wrong" and that "it is simply incorrect" (it is neither of those things). I won't name names but you know who you are.

Since 2024-10-28 RPiOS now has three* possible desktop configurations: X11/lxde, Wayland/Wayfire, or Wayland/labwc. They all use different methods to configure things that run at desktop start though the differences between lxde and labwc are more subtle than the differences between either of those and wayfire.

Wayland/labwc is the default on all new installations of RPiOS with desktop on all Pi models after this date.

For details on X11/lxde and Wayland/Wayfire refer to the guide linked to above. For Wayland/labwc read on.

• Sections 5.1.2 and 6.1.2 should work as expected.
• Sections 5.1.3 and 6.1.3 have not yet been tested but are expected to work.
• Equivalent functionality to section 5.2 is currently under investigation.
• Section 6.2 currently also applies under labwc though this is under investigation.
• Usage of the autostart file** is as follows:
  • System wide autostart file location: /etc/xdg/labwc/autostart
  • User specific autostart file location: $HOME/.config/labwc/autostart
  • The user specific file and directory may need to be manually created.
  • The user specific file does not override the system wide one. It specifies additional things to run.
  • Use of the full path to the executable is strongly advised.
  • The @ prefix as used by lxde is not valid under labwc. Use /usr/bin/lwrespawn instead e.g.

    Code:

    /usr/bin/lwrespawn /usr/bin/lxterminal

• labwc can be started from the command line with either labwc or labwc-pi.
  • Both variants can be passed a command to execute using the -s or -S argument e.g.

    Code:

    labwc-pi -s /usr/bin/lxterminal

    -S will exit labwc and the desktop when that program exits. -s will not.
  • Unlike with startx, the full desktop will be started including both the system wide and user specific autostart files.
• labwc documentation can be found at: https://labwc.github.io/index.html

An update is on my to do list but major changes are required as the current layout and sections do not fit the new situation. Don't hold your breath - recent feedback has been extremely discouraging and this isn't my day job.

*: Actually many more than three if using a different compositor (or window manager under X11) but that would be out of scope.
**: Section 5.1.1 under X11 or 6.1.1 (wayfire.ini) under wayland/wayfire.

Statistics: Posted by thagrol — Tue Nov 12, 2024 9:25 pm

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