/usr/share/xsessions and window manager

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2013-11-18 at 08:06 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Mon, 2013-11-18 at 11:23 +0800, Christopher Meng wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Yesterday I reviewed a package notion, which is a new window
> > manager(new to fedorian), it installs desktop file to
> > /usr/share/xsession.
> > 
> > Interesting, when I looking into more "window manager" in Fedora, I found that:
> > 
> > openbox installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > pekwm installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > dwm installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > ratpoison installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > fvwm installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > sawfish installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > icwm installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > enlightenment installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > awesome installs desktop file to /usr/share/xsessions
> > 
> > -------------
> > fluxbox installs desktop file to /usr/share/applications
> > xmonad installs desktop file to /usr/share/applications
> > i3 installs desktop file to /usr/share/applications
> > mutter installs desktop file to /usr/share/applications
> > byobu installs desktop file to /usr/share/applications
> > 
> > 
> > So I think that maybe  these have been doing wrong for years? Should I
> > file RFE for these?
> 
> No. These files serve different purposes.
> 
> Files in /usr/share/applications are to make applications known to the
> desktop shell (the fact that mutter installs a desktop file there is
> more or less a historic remnant - we could probably remove it without
> harm).
> 
> Files in /usr/share/xsessions tell the display manager which sessions to
> offer to the user on the login screen.

I think Christopher's point was that, given the nature of fluxbox,
xmonad, i3, mutter and byobu (they're all window managers), he'd expect
them to put a .desktop file in /usr/share/xsessions , not one
in /usr/share/applications .

You've explained the mutter case - its .desktop file
in /usr/share/applications is not the session definition for
Mutter-based X sessions, that'd be the GNOME session of course, and
its /usr/share/applications file is something else that can probably
die. But it does still leave the other cases to be explained.

fluxbox appears to provide both a session definition file and an
application file:

/usr/share/xsessions/fluxbox.desktop
/usr/share/applications/fluxbox.desktop

So does xmonad: xmonad-basic contains the xsessions file, xmonad-core
contains the applications file. i3 also contains both. byobu is the only
one which appears to _only_ contain an applications file, but I've no
idea what byobu is or whether that's sane.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net