This document details how the user portion of the booting process works, particularly focusing in on environment variables. The process of booting up and starting Plasma goes about as follows:
- Systemd starts the Getty service on VTY 1.
- Getty logs us in, using its configuration.
- Bash runs the Bash profile.
- The Bash profile runs the Comet Observatory RC script which sets environmental variables that are used internally.
- The Bash profile runs the user RC script which sets environmental variables used by all user programs.
- If the conditions are right, the Bash profile runs X.
- X runs the X RC script.
- The X RC script runs the user graphical RC script.
- The X RC script starts KDE Plasma.
- If the conditions aren't right, then we opt to treat this as a normal terminal, and run the Bash RC file.
Further reading: