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Blank screen while starting Xorg session from startxfce4 w/ argument :DISPLAY > 0

How to reproduce.

  1. System: Arch Linux 5.19.13, xorg-xinit 1.4.1, xfce4-session 4.16.0
  2. Remove a Display Manager.
  3. Remove a ~/.xinitrc and ~/.xserverrc.
  4. Run exec startxfce4 -- :1 on VT console login.

Solution.

The wrong order for xinit arguments in scripts/startxfce4.in:

SERVERRC="vt$XDG_VTNR $SERVERRC" must be SERVERRC="$SERVERRC vt$XDG_VTNR"

Because of, SERVERRC may contain DISPLAY argument, and xinit requires this one in very strict position:

xinit [ [ client ] options ... ] [ -- [ server ] [ display ] options ... ]