GNOME(1)		    General Commands Manual		      GNOME(1)



gnome-session - Starts up the GNOME desktop environment

SYNOPSIS
       gnome-session   [--choosesession]   [--failsafe]	 [--purge-delay=DELAY]
       [--warn-delay=DELAY] [--suicide-delay=DELAY] [session-name]

DESCRIPTION
       The gnome-session program starts	 up  the  GNOME	 desktop  environment.
       This  command  is typically executed by your login manager (either gdm,
       xdm, or from your X startup scripts).  It will load  either  your  last
       session,	 or  it will provide a default session for the user as defined
       by the system administrator (or the default GNOME installation on  your
       system).

       You can optionally specify a specific session name to restore.

       gnome-session  is an X11R6 session manager.  It can manage GNOME appli-
       cations as well as any X11R6 SM compliant.

       gnome-session uses the  contents	 of  the   ~/.gnome/session  file  for
       starting	 up  as	 specified  by	the  "Current  Sesssion"  key  in  the
       ~/.gnome/session-options file.  Various default values are provided  in
       case the file entry does not exist.

       If the session file does not exist, gnome-session will use the contents
       of the /usr/share/gnome/default.session file.

OPTIONS
       The following options are supported:

       --choose-session=ARG
	      User can specify a session to load, as opposed  to  the  session
	      specified	 in  the  ~/.gnome/session-options file. If that entry
	      does not exist in the ~/.gnome/session file  (or	if  that  file
	      doesn't exist), it will use the default session and all saves to
	      that session will be to the new session name.

       --failsafe
	      Fail safe operations mode: only reads saved  sessions  from  the
	      default.session file.

       --purge-delay=ARG
	      The  number  of  millisecond  that  gnome-session	 will wait for
	      clients to register, if you use 0 it will wait forever  (default
	      value: 30,000 milliseconds).

       --warn-delay=ARG
	      The  number  of  millisecond  that  gnome-session	 will wait for
	      clients to respond, if you use 0 it will wait  forever  (default
	      value: 10,000 milliseconds).

       --suicide-delay=ARG
	      The  number  of  millisecond  that  gnome-session	 will wait for
	      clients to die, if you use  0  it	 will  wait  forever  (default
	      value: 10,000 milliseconds).

ENVIRONMENT
       gnome-session accepts all of the standard environment variables used by
       gnome programs, other than the SESSION_MANAGER environment variable.  [
       xref  to	 a manpage where this is documented. ] gnome-session also sets
       several environment variables for the use of its child processes.

       SESSION_MANAGER

	      This variable is used by session-manager aware clients  to  con-
	      tact gnome-session.

       DISPLAY

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

SEE ALSO
       default.session(5),gnome-session-save(1)

BUGS
       If you find bugs in the	gnome-session  program,	 please	 report	 these
       using  bug-buddy	 or  the  gnome-bug  script  included  with  the GNOME
       libraries distribution.




				   GNOME 1.0			      GNOME(1)