Another Autostart Thread... (Sorry)

[RegalBeagle]

Hi All, first post (Be gentle)

I have been wading through post after post and thread after thread looking for the "Up to date and accurate" methodology of starting a customer application on bootup with no Desktop.

As far as I can tell from the last 8 hours of reading, trying and failing this process has changed many times over the years, files have moved directories have changed and most (if not all) of the guides on here are broken.

I would like to start rdesktop to connect to a Terminal Server on bootup without launching the standard GUI shell.

Sounds simple? Right?

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... &p=1084441

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... p?t=172961

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... hp?t=42888

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... p?t=211662

Are just a few of the tabs I currently have open. None of these guides work.

Please can someone tell me the August 2019 method of starting an application on bootup with no desktop?

Thanks,

[knute]

I would be curious to know how you run a GUI application without a desktop?

Did you compile it yourself or did you find a compiled file somewhere?

As to starting it, run it as a systemd service.

[scruss]

All of those links you post are rather old. It's one of the problems with searching for Raspberry Pi information:

1. the longer a link has been around, the better search engines rate it
2. the longer a link has been around, the less likely it will be to be useful, as things change too quickly with Raspberry Pis.

I try to avoid following advice older than about 18 months with the Raspberry Pi.

You will need to autoboot to the Desktop to get this graphical app working, as almost all Graphical Linux apps run on the desktop. So don't use Raspbian Lite. Use the boot to desktop option in setup.

Edit the startup file with sudo vi /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart - and add a line starting

Code: Select all

@rdesktop

just after the last '@' line.

You'll need to add options to the end of that command, but it will start (if installed, of course) on boot. The user will still likely be able to quit out of it into the desktop - it's been a long time since I ran something as the root window, though.