Line in inittab
 

What does this line in inittab mean?

Hi,

If I'm not mistaking (more experienced with server then with GUI) it starts the login manager xdm when booting into runlevel 5.

Kind regards,

Eric

Hi,

Just to support EricTRA's answer: This will indeed start xdm (runlevel 5) if initdefault is set to 5 in the inittab file (id:5:initdefault:).

man inittab

@AlucardZero: rtfm answers aren't helpful, especially in the Newbie sub forum. Politely pointing out that a man page exists might be helpful...

Just my 2c.

Edit: nevermind

Thanks!

You're welcome :)

The "respawn" means that it should automatically be restarted when it is stopped for whatever reason.

So if I kill xdm process, this line means it will automatically be restarted?

That should be what it means. Here is a parallel: text mode log-in is performed by the "login" process, which dies as soon as you enter the correct username and password; yet when you log out, you are presented with a new "login:" prompt. How can that be if the login process died when you logged in? Easy: it was respawned. Similarly, if you "killall nautilus", you will see some flicker on your desktop and nautilus and your icons will disappear, yet a second later nautilus is automatically restored to working order. That would be another example of respawning.