Gnome is not saving my session F10

[jbkt23]

I always have a terminal open with a certain layout and location that opens every time I login on F7 and F8. The latest gnome on F10 will not save any session or App settings. I searched for "gnome session errors" and did not find anything relevant. Is this unique to my install or are others having the same symptoms?

[svank]

It's a known problem.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/Common

GNOME session saving broken

The GNOME session management subsystem is being completely rewritten (see this page and this page), so this particular feature is in flux right now. This blog entry discusses a helpful workaround.

[jbkt23]

This isn't good. There is no time frame given in the articles. I will have to try the work around later.

[jbkt23]

Well I solved it for myself using session manager. Since what I want is just to have gnome-terminal start in a specific place and size I was able to find what options were accepted by typing:
$ gnome-terminal --help

There I discovered a number of options available as well as finding the I could use the standard geometry definitions that the Xserver uses. So in the session manager startup dialog I added the following:
gnome-terminal --window --tab --geometry 80x19+10+600

which opens a new terminal window with two tabs in the lower left corner of the first desktop. For those that want specific Apps on the other desktops I have not found an answer. Though if you name your desktops I think that then there is the possibility. If anyone tries that I would like to know your success.

[hyperspace]

Darn. One of those great Linux features that truly sets it apart from Windows.

I've used this feature on UNIX platforms since the mid '90s. Hope they fix it sooner than later.

[EclipseSW]

Well, 2 weeks after upgrading from FC3 to FC10, this is the second issue I spent chasing my tail on for a few hours! I need to check the forums more often....

[jbkt23]

So has anyone had a shot at naming desktops and saving session window parameters for the specific desktop? I have been busy exploring other features and haven't tried myself.

[cire99]

Thanks for all the info. Trying to resolve the workspace issue (I could've sworn I included the workspace in the gnome-terminal geometry spec at some time in the past), I encountered devilspie. Great potential there, although I'm continuing to look (and hope) for a simpler solution (such as further session management development). See the developer's site (I think) at http://www.burtonini.com/blog/computers/devilspie, some documentation at http://foosel.org/linux/devilspie and some more at some more at http://live.gnome.org/DevilsPie. I haven't tested the potential, but it looks as if this will do the job if I can't track down a simpler solution (e.g., a workspace specifier in the autostart file--not mentioned in the specs at http://standards.freedesktop.org/aut...ec-latest.html, but I'm still hopeful).

[cire99]

The devilspie solution did work. As expected, it took me a while to tame the nuances: start devilspie at login, rather than with the session manager; used .config/autostart files to start the gnome-terminals I wanted with the appropriate geometry specs, but had to alter my default gnome-terminal profile to prepend unique titles as hooks for devilspie (there is probably a better way, but I didn't trust or even test the window ids as hooks). If anybody wants a more detailed description, details of devilspie scripts, etc., let me know. The good thing about devilspie is it would start applications, e.g., firefox, that were never saved in previous incarnations of the session management. Gnome-terminals were saved, and to the desired workspaces, but for some reason I can't get the gnome-terminal --screen option to do what it once did.

[jbkt23]

Thanks cire99,
I will have to look into it. Right now I'm trying to figure out a number of things that have changed between F8 and F10 in respect to gnome behavior and policykit. Some good.