Qt application GUI — automatic start — linux

Question

I need to run my Qt GUI application immediately when my linux system starts. I do not need any other things apart from this Qt GUI application. No need of desktop.

Previously I have started daemo using update-rc.d command but I do not know how to start GUI and I do not have much knowledge about X11.

I went through net & found two links:

1. Running a Qt application at startup This is telling to create desktop entry file for you... but as i do not need desktop. And only want my GUI to run. So this is not the solution which i am looking for.

2. http://www.qtcentre.org/threads/28564-Qt-app-in-linux-startup Here I am not able to understand what I have to do with /xinitrc.d. And how my application GUI can start. Can some one clarify this point?

Can some one suggest what I will have to do to start only GUI application?

Answer 1

You very probably need some X window manager to run your Qt application, perhaps even some desktop environment (i.e. you want EWMH & ICCCM compliance), and you obviously need a running X11 server (usually Xorg). So you could manage to have some xinitrc for all that.

Notice that some session -or display- managers like lightdm can be configured to start some special sessions.

In all cases, you need a lot more than just your application to be running, and you certainly need to understand in detail what your Qt application really requires (mostly thru Qt libraries). Learn more about the X11 protocol. See also freedesktop.org.

Answer 2

If you're using lightdm Desktop Manager, then edit your /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf file by uncommenting line

session-setup-script=

and immediately after equal sign (without spaces) add path to your gui application!

Save lightdm.conf file, and restart the system!