Autostart locations in KDE4

[Stephen Dowdy]

Tim Edwards wrote, On 06/02/2011 02:10 PM:

> Thanks for the script. I'm not sure what you mean exactly. The config path is:
> config = /home/tim/.kde4/share/config/:/usr/share/kde4/config/:/etc/kde4/share/config/ [/usr/share/kde4/config/]
> 
> Does that mean KDE scans all those directories for rc-files, and then starts any that have autostart=true?

No,

I think what you're really looking at (i could be wrong), is that the
"networkmanager" desktop autostart file
(on my Debian Squeeze machine, this is located in
   /usr/share/autostart/kde-4-knetworkmanager-autostart.desktop
)
has an execution conditional in it...

X-KDE-autostart-condition=networkmanagementrc:General:Autostart:true

So, in order to autostart networkmanager, it needs to find a
configuration key named "Autostart" within the "General" group of
the networkmanagementrc configuration file that is true.

$ kreadconfig --file networkmanagementrc  --group General --key Autostart
(i don't have such a key in my config search path)

So, it must default to 'true', I suspect that you have it set FALSE
somewhere.

$ kde4-config --locate networkmanagementrc --path config
/home/sdowdy/.kde/share/config/networkmanagementrc

This is the file that is found first within the config path

To force Autostart to True, do...

kwriteconfig --file networkmanagementrc  --group General --key Autostart true

That will write it into the first path component in the "config" path (for you:
 /home/tim/.kde4/share/config/networkmanagementrc)


So, the *autostart* files are separate from the configuration files,
but because the networkmanager desktop autostart file is making a
demand for a config path conditional, the config stuff gets pulled into
the mix here.


>From quickly glancing at another message of yours.  Those other applications
are probably configured in the KDE4 system autostart install path, thus not
*user* managed.

My 'kde4-info' script doesn't identify that path (because kde4-config doesn't
show it either), but as you see from above it is /usr/share/autostart.


This brings up a point about *Disabling* those system installed defaults.
Theoretically, they should all have a 'X-KDE-autostart-condition' directive
so the user could create disabling overrides.  But notice they don't all:

$ grep -c X-KDE-autostart-condition /usr/share/autostart/*
/usr/share/autostart/kab2kabc.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/kaddressbookmigrator.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/kalarm.autostart.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/kgpg.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/klipper.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/kmix_autostart.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/konqy_preload.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/korgac.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/krunner.desktop:0
/usr/share/autostart/nepomukserver.desktop:1
/usr/share/autostart/plasma-desktop.desktop:0
/usr/share/autostart/restore_kmix_volumes.desktop:1


So, it is presumed that you MUST run krunner and plasma-desktop on
my machine.  I wanted to replace 'plasma-desktop' with one that
started 'plasma-desktop --graphicssystem=raster'.  From what little
documentation i ran across there was a method of a user created
autostart OVERRIDE of a system autostart.  I.E. create the same
filename and disable it from running.  Then i was going to create
a 'plasma-desktop-rastergraphics.desktop' that invoked the command above,
instead.

Unfortunately, Debian Squeeze forcibly deletes any
'plasma-desktop.desktop' file in the user's autostart directory
in 'startkde' to address some other bug.  I think that solution is
itself a bug, breaking this override mechanism (as i understand it)
Oh well, there are plenty of other significant bugs in KDE4 i'm
having to deal with.
(kquitapp plasma-desktop && sleep 3 && plasma-desktop --graphicssystem=raster)
then has to become a KDE4 "Autostart" script to workaround this particular
bug :-(

Hopefully that answers your question...
--stephen

-- 
Stephen Dowdy  -  Systems Administrator  -  NCAR/RAL
303.497.2869   -  sdowdy at ucar.edu        -  http://www.ral.ucar.edu/~sdowdy/

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