Understanding X??
 

I was just curious to know, what happens when you load X from the console or a DM? I know startx is a frontend for xinit, but other than that I am clueless. Basically what is the steps (startx uses xinit, xinit uses...) from startx to a window manager?

Thanks
A Slacker

Basically, the objective is to start the X server and the clients necessary or desired and take care of other administrative details. The X server can actually be started directly, but xinit is usually used to do so and startx is a wrapper to that, as you mention. 'startx' is invoked, it looks to ~/.xinitrc and various other files to see which servers and clients to run, while taking care of other details, and starts them. If you use xdm or the various other ?dms, you're doing something similar, but cutting 'startx' and '.xinitrc' out of the loop and using xdm's configs. But it still boils down to an Xserver and clients.

So startx>xinit>xserver+xclients - done.

My .xinitrc is basically providing values to variables while startx is providing others and invoking the binaries.

I think. :)

'man' for 'X', 'Xserver', 'xinit', 'startx', 'xdm' for better information. And you can read your '.xinitrc' and 'startx' directly, of course.

the window manager is just another client, and every progrma under X must be able ro run without a windows manager ther (its just comon sence), the window manager asks the xserver to redirect all certain requests (you can pick what to let pass and what to redirect), to teh window amnager, the manager then usualy puts the window in a frame then passes it back to the server, and there as go, you got thsoe decorations and little bars and whatnot -- i think that sums up the window manager part