Start X after automatic login

Question

I have a working automatic login to a virtual console after boot. Now I want the X server to start automatically, instead of typing startx. This worked before, but after switching to systemd, X would not start itself. According to the wiki page, I edited my ~/.bash_profile:

#
# ~/.bash_profile
#
[[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] && . ~/.bashrc
[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && exec startx

But X won´t start (executing startx manually works).

The wiki also notes:

X must always be run on the same tty where the login occurred, to preserve the logind session. This is handled by the default /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc.

But I am not sure how to handle this. My /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -z "$XDG_VTNR" ]; then
  exec /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp "$@"
else
  exec /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp "$@" vt$XDG_VTNR
fi

What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE

~/.xinitrc:

#!/bin/sh
#
# ~/.xinitrc
#
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)

# Keyboard layout
setxkbmap -layout de nodeadkeys
# Set the cursor
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr

# Autostart
tint2 & #Taskbar
/usr/lib/notification-daemon-1.0/notification-daemon & #Notifications
numlockx & #activate numlock

case "$1" in
    openbox)
        exec ck-launch-session openbox-session ;;
    xmonad)
        exec ck-launch-session xmonad ;;
    *) #default
        exec ck-launch-session xmonad ;;
esac

I don´t have a ~/.Xresources file and I didn´t need one before. Is it important?

Answer 1

I'm not sure what XDG_VTNR implicates, but this script works for me, put the line to ~/.bashrc

(I do auto-X on tty3)

if [[ -z $DISPLAY ]] && [[ $(tty) = /dev/tty3 ]]; then exec startx; fi

Also define "not working", does it work if you launch startx manually? If not, examine your ~/.xinitrc first.

Answer 2

In .bash_profile, you can find out (after autologin with getty -a in /etc/inittab) what tty you are in with tty (if you're in fact in X, it could look like this: /dev/pts/1 - this is what the p check is about below). Then, set a variable to store this information; later, use it to launch X with xinit.

You should also setup ~/.xinitrc and ~/.Xresources; a good start of ~/.xinitrc is xrdb ~/.Xresources - check the man pages for all of this. You can find some examples here.

CURRENT_VT=`tty`
if [[ ${CURRENT_VT[6]} == "p" ]]; then
    export VT="X"
else
    export VT=${CURRENT_VT: -1:1}
fi

# ... [cut] initialize everything else ...

# OK, done; let's start applications and X depending on where we are

case $VT in
    (1) emacs ;;
    (5) wait_for_internet
        irssi --connect=open.ircnet.net ;;
    (6) xinit ;;
    (X) ... do X stuff ... ;;
esac

EDIT

By mistake, I posted the above zsh code - in bash syntax, it would look somewhat like this (with the reservation that it is much less tested than the zsh code, which runs every day on my computer). The rest is unchanged.

CURRENT_VT=`tty`
if [[ ${CURRENT_VT:5:1} = "p" ]]; then
    export VT="X";
else
    export VT=${CURRENT_VT:${#CURRENT_VT} - 1};
fi