Auto Start Applications at Login to GNOME Desktop

It may sound trivial, but for the longest time, I, being an avid CLI fan, did not configure GNOME to auto-start certain applications after login to desktop.

A couple of times, I actually went looking for some entry similar to Microsoft Windows Startup menu in the GNOME menu structures, but each time, I came up empty and frustrated.

Finally, I found out how, and I wrote it down. The following works for the GNOME Desktop 2.14.3 using the Debian Etch Linux distribution.

To configure GNOME to auto start an application on login,

1. Mouse to Desktop -> Preferences -> Sessions.
   
   
   


2. Click to select the Startup Programs Tab.
   
3. Click Add.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Enter the command, e.g., skype, and click OK.
   
   Note: You may need to enter the full path for the command, (e.g., /etc/bin/skype) if the command is not in the command path.
   
5. Click Close to exit Sessions dialog box.