I was wondering if there is a way to make Cinnamon 1.4 the default environment upon logging in to Ubuntu 12.04. I can install Cinnamon 1.4 without any problems, but I am trying to run XRDP to log in from a Windows machine and would like it to start "Cinnamon session" instead of a Unity session by default.
The question is, How can I tell XRDP to use Cinnamon instead of Unity upon logging in?
XRDP seems to work much better than any VNC based servers.
Found this on the net, on this url: http://sigkillit.com/tag/xrdp
Customize Desktop Environment for xRDP Session
If you do not want to use the default desktop environment, you can customize it by creating a .Xclients file (X is capital!!!) in your home directory to launch the desktop environment you want and making it executable. In order to do this, open a terminal and run one of the following commands
Gnome 3:
echo "gnome-session" > ~/.Xclients
chmod +x ~/.Xclients
sudo systemctl restart xrdp.service
Gnome Fallback:
echo "gnome-fallback" > ~/.Xclients
chmod +x ~/.Xclients
sudo systemctl restart xrdp.service
KDE:
echo "startkde" > ~/.Xclients
chmod +x ~/.Xclients
sudo systemctl restart xrdp.service
MATE:
echo "mate-session" > ~/.Xclients
chmod +x ~/.Xclients
sudo systemctl restart xrdp.service
Cinnamon:
echo "cinnamon" > ~/.Xclients
chmod +x ~/.Xclients
sudo systemctl restart xrdp.service
Xfce4:
echo "startxfce4" > ~/.Xclients
chmod +x ~/.Xclients
sudo systemctl restart xrdp.service
touch ~/.Xclients ?
– Frank Nocke
Feb 13 '16 at 18:20
You can start the environment you want only for xrdp (not for local login) in /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh
For example, to start xfce, I use:
#!/bin/sh
if [ -r /etc/default/locale ]; then
. /etc/default/locale
export LANG LANGUAGE
fi
# default (= ubuntu)
#. /etc/X11/Xsession
# unity 2d
#echo "gnome-session --session=ubuntu-2d" > ~/.xsession
#. /etc/X11/Xsession
# xfce
startxfce4
exit(0)
Commented out, you can see the commands to start unity (ubuntu session) and unity 2d. You only need to comment out xfce command and add the command to start Cinnamon (I didn't give it because I don't know how to start it manually).
Obs: I agree with you xrdp works better than others remote desktop viewers I tried and it works very well with xfce. I use it from other linux machines too with Remmina client.
To use it with xfce, you need to install xubuntu-desktop (sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop)
If you're using Lubuntu Desktop (tested on 12.04 LTS)
For lx syntax discovery:
ps aux | grep lx
Implementing lx syntax:
echo "lxsession -s Lubuntu -e LXDE" > ~/.xsession
sudo service xrdp restart
For LXDE:
Install lxde-common:
sudo apt-get install lxde-common
Make changes in /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh like this:
#!/bin/sh
if [ -r /etc/default/locale ]; then
. /etc/default/locale
export LANG LANGUAGE
fi
#. /etc/X11/Xsession
startlxde
I must admit, I have no personal experince with XRDP. Although it might work if you followed these guidelines, to change your default desktop enviroment at login:
The systemctl command is specific to Fedora. For Ubuntu, the command should be:
sudo service xrdp restart
This is all too confusing. All you have to do is put the text in a file called .Xclients in your home directory that will specify the default desktop. To see what's installed on your system and find out what they are called do:
ls /user/share/xessions
you will see files with an extension .desktop, for example mate.desktop
to make mate your default desktop you can then edit .Xclients in your home folder, if you have such a file, or create one with nothing in it except your chosen desktop type (without the .desktop extension) with a -session appended:
echo mate-session > ~/.Xclients
should do this just fine. You can then log off and log back in, or if you are connected using xrdp you can restart xrdp, which will log you off and then you can log back in, (just log off and log back in, its stupid to get confused by restarting xrdp etc...)
Forget switchdesk - its broken in Fedora 23.
Forget most of what's on the web for prior Fedora versions, Ubuntu etc... None of it works.
First you should have cinnamon on your system :)
Second issue the commands
echo "cinnamon" > ~/.xsession
sudo service xrdp restart
OR if you like to do it hard:) do the following:
Edit the file /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh
sudo -H gedit /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh
At the end of the file you will find the following lines:
pre_start
wm_start
post_start
These are calls to functions above. So in order to make cinnamon the default just put # before wm_start to comment it (to stop calling the function which searches for the sessions)
Add the following line in front of the above three lines gnome-session --session=cinnamon
restart xrdp sudo service xrdp restart
Restart xrdp:
sudo /etc/init.d/xrdp restart
