Running user scripts after login

The need to run programs as soon as the desktop session starts arises quite often in Void Linux.

As user services are a bit of a hassle to get right, I prefer to use a startup script due both to its simplicity and because it allows easy access to standard output & error streams.

Setup

1. Create file ~/.config/autostart/loginrc.desktop with the following contents:

   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Name=loginrc
   Comment=Run commands on login
   Exec=/home/<USER>/.loginrc

   Replace <USER> with your username as appropiate.

2. Create file ~/.loginrc with the following contents:

   #!/bin/bash
   sleep 5
   notify-send "HEY!"

3. Make it executable with:

   chmod +x ~/.loginrc

If you did everything correctly, on restarting your session a notification saying "HEY!" should appear after a while.

Starting user services

To fork a user service from the ~/.loginrc script, you can just do:

(YOUR_SERVICE &>/dev/null) &

If you want to leave a log behind to check for errors, just replace /dev/null with the name of a file.