budgie-session(1)

💖 budgie-session — from the General Commands Manual, bestie edition 💖

okay so picture this: it's budgie-session(1), and she's the one who literally boots up your whole budgie desktop environment. main character energy fr fr.

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✨ NAME ✨

budgie-session — start the budgie desktop environment 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

budgie-session [-a|--autostart=DIR] [--session=SESSION] [--failsafe|-f]
[--debug] [--whale]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so budgie-session is the program that starts up the budgie desktop environment. no cap. your login manager runs it — that's gdm, xdm, or your X startup scripts, whichever one your setup is serving ✨. it'll load either your saved session or the default budgie installation that's chillin' on your system. and heads up bestie: budgie-session is a wrapper script for budgie-session-binary, iykyk 👑

the vibe-check on where sessions live:

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/budgie-session/sessions
• $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/budgie-session/sessions
• $XDG_DATA_DIRS/budgie-session/sessions

when you're saving a session, budgie-session saves the currently running applications into the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/budgie-session/saved-session directory 🎀. and this is the important bit — saving sessions is only supported with the legacy non-systemd startup method. periodt.

budgie-session is an X11R6 session manager. she can manage budgie applications and any X11R6 SM compliant application. versatile queen 🌈

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

the following options are supported:

• --autostart=DIR — the directory DIR to be searched for autostart .desktop files. you can use this option multiple times 👯. and when this option is present, then default autostart directories will not be searched. she said choose your own adventure.
• --session=SESSION — use the applications defined in SESSION.session. if you don't specify it, budgie.session will be used. default queen 💜
• --builtin — use the legacy non-systemd method of managing the user session.
• --failsafe — run in fail-safe mode. user-specified applications will not be started.
• --debug — enable debugging code 🐛
• --whale — show the fail whale in a dialog for debugging it 🐋

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🎀 SESSION DEFINITION 🎀

sessions are defined in .session files, and they're using a .desktop-like format, with the following keys in the budgie Session group:

• Name — name of the session. this can be localized 🌍
• RequiredComponents — list of component identifiers (desktop files) that are required by the session. the required components will always run in the session.

here's an example of a session definition, look how cute:

[budgie Session]
Name=budgie
RequiredComponents=budgie-desktop;gnome-settings-daemon;

the .session files are looked for in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/budgie-session/sessions, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/budgie-session/sessions and $XDG_DATA_DIRS/budgie-session/sessions.

it is best to use --builtin if session customizations are required. this is due to the way that budgie currently defines the components that will be started on each session type. so like, not a suggestion, more of a "trust me bestie" 🫶

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

budgie-session sets several environment variables for the use of its child processes:

• SESSION_MANAGER — this variable is used by session-manager aware clients to contact budgie-session. it's giving "call me, beep me" 📞
• DISPLAY — this variable is set to the X display being used by budgie-session. note that if the --display option is used this might be different from the setting of the environment variable when budgie-session is invoked. sneaky 👀

behavior of budgie-session itself can be modified via the following environment variable:

• GNOME_SESSION_AUTOSTART_DIR — this variable specifies a list of directories to the searched for autostart files. this variable overrides all directories specified via the --autostart option, as well as all default autostart directories. she's the final boss 🔥

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⭐ FILES ⭐

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/autostart $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/autostart /usr/share/gnome/autostart — applications defined via .desktop files in those directories will be started on login ✨
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/budgie-session/sessions $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/budgie-session/sessions $XDG_DATA_DIRS/budgie-session/sessions — these directories contain the .session files that can be used with the --session option.
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/budgie-session/saved-session — this directory contains the list of applications of the saved session. your little time capsule 📦

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💀 BUGS 💀

if you find bugs in the budgie-session program, please report these on https://github.com/buddiesofbudgie/budgie-session/issues — the buddies want to know, fr fr 🙈

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

budgie-session-quit(1)

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and that's the whole page bestie 💖 this one's from the BUDGIE crew, dated Oct 2023 — slay, and go touch some .session files 🌸💅