I, as I can believe anyone around, have been firing /usr/bin/startx for decades experiencing nothing but 100% satisfaction for the job it serves.
If it works… don't fix it !
The author of the script is however explicit :
Site administrators are STRONGLY urged to write nicer versions.
I am left just curious :
- Does anyone know what historical reasons compelled the author to write such strong statement ?
- Has anyone ever written any "nicer version", how and what for ?
Nota : I see a number of requests to close this question for the reason it would trigger opinion based answers.
I understand how the "nicer" qualifier could suggest taste judgements but I just can't imagine the author "STRONGLY urging" administrators to commit aesthetic changes.
Just lots of things are opened to changes in that script, from forcing client / server arguments, honoring / ignoring users .*rc to even incidentally forking whatever else than /usr/bin/xinit.
All these fiddlings + many more I don't even imagine particularly in the field of security, would certainly depend on perfectly reasonable motives and fit the purpose of special use cases. This is exactly what this question is about.