Ubuntu
gnome-session package

Disabling startup apps in Gnome Sessions Preferences doesn't take.

Asked by aslam karachiwala

Despite disabling startup apps in Gnome Session Preferences, the apps continue to launch at startup. The do appear disabled (no check mark) in the startup list, however.

At one point I had enabled "Automatically remember running applications at logout", but I've disabled it since. Could it be that those settings didn't get turned off correctly?

An example -- Firefox:

o The following is in ~/gnome2/session; the launched FF process corresponds to the RestartCommand below:
11,id=117f000101000121450330800000066530006
11,Program=firefox
11,CurrentDirectory=/home/aslam
11,CloneCommand=firefox
11,RestartCommand=firefox --sm-client-id 117f000101000121450330800000066530006 --screen 0

o ~/.config/autostart/firefox.desktop does appear to be disabled:
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Name=No Name
Name[en_US]=Firefox 3
Comment[en_US]=Firefox 3.x browser
Comment=Firefox 3.x browser
Exec=/usr/bin/firefox-3.0 -no-remote -P default about:blank
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false

How can I keep the disabled apps from launching at startup?

Even with FF enabled to launch at startup, how can I tweak its args for instance, have it start with a profile other than 'default'?

Should I delete/edit the respective entries from ~/.gnome2/session and/or ~/.config/autostart/firefox.desktop? Are there any gotchas for editing these files?

The gnome-session man page also mentions the ~/.gnome/session-options file. I don't have this file. Should I create it? It would help if someone would point me to an example or doc about the contents of this file.

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Ubuntu gnome-session Edit question
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Solved by:
Tommy Mikkelsen
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Best Tommy Mikkelsen (tamikkelsen) said : 		#1

I'm sitting on a fresh install of Ubuntu here, those files aren't here. So I assume you can delete them,and the problem should go away. Try moving the files out of the folders (copy them to your home directory) and see if it causes any problems for you, before you delete them.

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aslam karachiwala (akwala) said : 		#2

Thx, Tommy.

I deleted ~/.gnome2/session and rebooted. It seems to have worked. The offending apps didn't launch at startup.

I also edited the autostart launch commands of a couple of apps, via Session Preferences, and re-enabled them. The corresponding *.desktop files in ~/.config/autostart were modified appropriately. These apps launch at startup, as desired.

Useful info re this and other Gnome desktop stuff: http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/GNOME.html

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aslam karachiwala (akwala) said : 		#3

Thanks Tommy Mikkelsen, that solved my question.