GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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GDM Startup

The Gnome Display Manager gdm, when installed, will start up automatically on boot. This presents an X Window System interface to log on. If you are used to starting the X Window System from the command line you will be used to using either .xsession or .xinitrc to tune some of your X Window System settings. The System menu in the gdm dialogue lets you start up Debian, Gnome, or XSession. To tune your X Window System settings in this environment with your .xsession file be sure to run with the Debian session. If you use the default Gnome session in gdm place your tuning in the file .gnomerc in your home directory, but be sure not to include any window managers, etc., as these are started by the gnome-session command that the Gnome session starts. Some startup tunning I perform incudes:

#
# Left ALT should be META so that it is the way I like it in Emacs. 
#
xmodmap -e 'keysym Alt_L = Meta_L'
xmodmap -e 'add mod1 = Meta_L'
#
# Start up by asking for the SSH Pass Phrase
#
ssh-add .ssh/id_dsa </dev/null