How to do so? For starters, I'm not sure there is such an event. Maybe it has something to do with the OS moving through certain run-levels? A nudge in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks,
BW

I'm not sure there's such an user-switch event since linux is a multi-users system (many users can be logged in the same system at a while), but for sure you've got a log-off and a log-on event, and you can add actions by editing .bashrc and .bash_logout file in your home directory...

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Thanks for the suggestion. Working off of login/logout was my next option. What about Gnome, does it have some kind of hook I can use when switch user occurs? I'll start looking into it, but maybe someone out there knows already...

I don't think you've clearly explained what you really need.

For example, under your desktop environment of choice (say, Gnome) in a terminal window you type

and then the password.

Do you consider this to be switching users ?

When I use Gnome to switch users, which will bring up a new desktop, I want to have a script automatically run at that point. To be even more explicit, in ubuntu there is a default applet in the upper-right hand corner of the screen which which has a drop down menu that says "Switch User..." When I (or anyone else) clicks on that option and uses it to switch users, I want to automatically run a script. I'm sure there are a sequence of events that occur when the user chooses this option, and there is probably some way to hook my script into this process...So the question is how to do so?

Attached is a screenshot...when I click on this menu option, I want my own script to be automatically run at some point (I don't think at the moment it matters exactly when).

Attached Thumbnails

 

Do you use gnome?
Take a look at