Start Linux Programs Upon Booting - ie Windows' Startup?
 

In windows you can put all sorts of programs into a "startup" folder, and they all run automatically when windows boots up. Is there some similar function for linux? If it's a distro-specific type issue, I'm using mandrake 10.0

Thanks

it can be distro-specific, somewhat... different distros will script things in different ways, but the idea is generic.

the bigger question is do you mean to start up system services, like apache, or mysql, or do you mean to start up login programs like gaim or gimp?

Well I'm going out on a limb here and assuming he means the latter since he refered to them as 'programs'.

Gnome and KDE both have ways of accomplishing this through their gui tools.

You can edit the file on a terminal

/etc/rc.d/rc.local

and append your instructions to the end of it. Before I do this type of thing I make a backup of the file ie
cp rc.local rc.local.save

You can also put programs to be run in
/etc/inittab

If you look at it you will see the idear. Be careful makeing bad changes could make your system not boot or run properly.
You need to be root to do this
Have fun!

In gnome you can make programs start automatically by going to

Applications/Desktop preferences/Advanced/Services

You can also "Save session" when you Logout from Gnome, meaning that you can just leave a browser or whatever open and then Logout + Save session.

I suppose KDE has similar tools.