xfce4 is having its own commandline startup. E.g. from commandline it loads xorg and xfce4 even if an other environment is setup by startx.

Could an script be made so it only loads one application? Would this save many resources?

But first how should such an script look? I could go trial and error, but i would appreciate pointers getting me in the right direction. (a complete script would also be nice :-) )

Hi.

Just write an .xsession script and put it in the users' home directory. You can write there the applications you want to start, e.g. the following would start Beryl with one xterm (i.e., not Gnome, not XFCE - purely Beryl)

Then you can use GDM or XDM to select XSession (or custom X session or something like that), and this file should be used in that case to determine what to start.
If you don't use GDM, etc., you can write a .xinitrc script in the same way.

If you use Ubuntu, this might help: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CustomXSession


Best regards,
Johan

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

Thanks for the script, i will try this tomorow.

So as an windows manager is needed we'd better find a light one:

http://www.cc.rim.or.jp/~hok/heliwm/
Or
http://www.jfc.org.uk/software/lwm.html

as i am afraid that beryl will take up to much system resources for just starting an opengl application.

Are there also other ways to strip down xorg?

Hi.

Actually, you don't even need a window manager if you only want to run a single application.
I did this in the past with Quake III on the EFIKA for demo purposes.

The way it normally works:
xorg - window manager - application

The way you want it to work:
xorg - application.


Getting xorg down in size won't be easy, but there might be some lightweight alternatives. If you need a lightweight window manager, you can't get any faster than Fluxbox.


Johan.

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

You can try the "KDrive" X.org if you need lightweight X server, however you'll lose OpenGL for the privilege if I remember correctly, on some chipsets at least.

There are also a few other solutions for thinning down X.org - it will require you to edit the build system files to remove components, and maybe add a few in. Why not try Xcb instead of Xlib, for a start? Get rid of bitmap fonts.. and any esoteric formats there may be in the process. Disable DGA, and all those extensions you don't need (don't even build them!) because really all you need is XAA/EXA, DRI support and the Radeon driver, and a couple small support libraries to get a full X server with full acceleration..

_________________
Matt Sealey