mate-session(1)

Usage

mate-session [OPTIONS]

Overview

The mate-session program starts up the MATE desktop environment. This command is typically executed by your Login/Display Manager (like GDM, LXDM, XDM, SLiM, or from your X startup scripts like .xinitrc). It will load either your saved session, or it will provide a default session for the user as defined by the system administrator (or the default MATE installation on your system).

The default session is defined in the dconf keys under /org/mate/desktop/session/
When saving a session, mate-session saves the currently running applications in the ~/.config/mate-session/saved-session directory of the users /home.

mate-session is an X11 session manager. It can manage MATE applications as well as any other X11 SM compliant ones.

Options

The following options are supported:

-a, --autostart=DIR: Start all applications defined in "DIR", instead of starting the applications defined in /org/mate/desktop/session/default-session
Multiple --autostart options can be passed.

-f, --failsafe: Run in fail-safe mode. User-specified applications will not be started.

--debug: Enable debugging code.

--display=DISPLAY: X display to use.

--version: Output version information and exit.

-?, -h, --help: Print standard command line options.

--help-all: Print all command line options.

Environment

mate-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 mate-session.

DISPLAY

: This variable is set to the X display being used by mate-session. Note that if the --display option is used this might be different from the setting of the environment variable when mate-session is invoked.

Files

~/.config/autostart
/usr/share/autostart
/usr/share/mate/autostart

: The applications defined in the above directories will be started on login. mate-session-properties(1) can be used to easily configure them.

~/.config/mate-session/saved-session

: This directory contains the list of applications of the saved session.

Releases

7 releases since Debian 8 (Jessie); the text changed 1 time.

Referred to by

mate-wm(1) Start the window manager configured by the user mate-session-save(1) End or save the current MATE session mate-session-properties(1) Configure applications to start on login.