How to start a program on user login

On Debian Lenny with KDE.

I added a command to the bottom of $HOME/.profile to open transmission so my complete .profile looks like this: (everything except the last line is default)

...
# if running bash
if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then
    # include .bashrc if it exists
    if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then
        . "$HOME/.bashrc"
    fi
fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

transmission-gtk

What happens though is when I log in transmission pops up and the desktop won't load until I close it.

I thought the purpose of $HOME/.profile was to run scripts/programs when a user logs in. Am I misunderstanding its purpose?

linux
bash
debian
kde
login-screen

user1028270

Posted 2015-11-21T22:17:31.013

Reputation: 763

2Run it in the background? transmission-gtk &. Then the script can finish and continue with your login. – DavidPostill – 2015-11-21T22:20:05.690

How to start a program on user login

Answers