KSMServer

ksmserver is KDE's session manager. On startup the session manager launches auto-start applications and restores applications from the previous session. The applications to auto-start are indicated by .desktop files in the $KDEDIR/share/autostart directory. Whether or not to auto-start an application can be made conditional upon some configuration entry determined by the X-KDE-autostart-condition entry in the .desktop file.

The ktip.desktop file for example contains:

X-KDE-autostart-condition=ktiprc:TipOfDay:RunOnStart:true

This means that the ktiprc configuration file is checked for a RunOnStart entry in the [TipOfDay] section. If no such entry is found, true is assumed, which means that ktip is one of the applications that is auto-started by default.

Some of the applications auto-started by ksmserver are:

kdesktop: The KDE desktop
Kicker: The KDE panel
ktip: A tip of the day program
kwrited: A utility to receive system messages sent to the user
Klipper: A clipboard utility that docks in the panel
kalarm: A utility that warns about upcoming events and appointments

kdesktop in its turn automatically starts applications stored in $KDEHOME/Autostart. kdesktop will automatically open any files stored in this directory including documents, binary files or applications in the form of .desktop files.

The KDE session manager also restores one of the previous sessions. A session contains a collection of applications as well as application-specific information that reflects the state of the applications at the time the session was saved. Sessions are stored in the ksmserverrc configuration file which contains references to application-specific state information. The application-specific state information is saved in $KDEHOME/share/config/session. The state information of KWin contains the location of the application windows of all the other applications in the session.