Created attachment 8643 Redirected stderr to a log file Description of problem: When I run startxfce4 on Fedora 30, it fails with the error 'Unrecognized option: --'. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): xfce4-session-4.13.1-23.fc30.x86_64 How reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. run startxfce4 2. 3. Actual results: X fails to start Expected results: X and XFCE4 start. Additional info: If I run `xinit /usr/bin/startxfce4 -- :0 vt1` it starts XFCE4 correctly. I have posted it on the Red Hat Bug Tracker (id=1718968) and I was then asked to post it here too.
I can only trigger the bug when I run `startxfce4 --` on my system. Removing the space character in this line fixes it: https://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-session/tree/scripts/startxfce4.in#n55
I removed that space but I still get the same error message.
Please add "set -x" (verbose output) as first command to the script, run startxfce4 and attach the output to this report.
Created attachment 8648 Added `set -x` and redirected stderr to a log file - $ startxfce4 2>Xorg-error.log
Is /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc missing?
It is missing indeed. What should be there? root@localhost ~# rpm --query --list xorg-x11-xinit | grep /etc/ /etc/X11/Xmodmap /etc/X11/Xresources /etc/X11/xinit /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients.d /etc/X11/xinit/Xsession /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc-common /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/localuser.sh root@localhost ~# rpm --query --list xorg-x11-server-Xorg | grep /etc/ /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d /etc/pam.d/xserver
I found the actual problem with xfce4-session-4.13.1-23.fc30.x86_64. A distro-specific patch is applied to startxfce4, and it conflicts with the following commit: https://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-session/commit/?id=04e45b5bbdefe4e174c95dcbc70a725b8198b50d
Fedora patch: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/xfce4-session/blob/master/f/xfce-session-4.10-startxfce4.patch
Fedora released xfce4-session-4.13.2-2.fc30.x86_64 so I updated it to test it. It still gave me the same error message. Then I reversed the patch you linked. This fixed the issue and running `$ startxfce4` now works correctly. Running `$ startxfce4 --` gave me the error so I removed the space on line 55. This fixed it and running `$ startxfce4 --` now works correctly as well.
The space is most likely needed to distinguish plain '--' from '--parameter' while parsing the command line options. My example is not a proper use case, so I will close this report.