This brief tutorial shows you how to automatically startup programs in all user profiles in Ubuntu 11.10. Sometimes you may want a program to automatically launch for all users upon logon to Ubuntu without manually starting it. Ubuntu has a program called ‘Startup Applications’ that lets you automatically start programs, however, it will only work for the user who configured it and won’t work for all other user accounts.This method works great in Ubuntu 11.10

Objectives:

• Auto start programs for all users in Ubuntu 11.10
• Enjoy!

To get started, copy the program you wish to automatically startup everytime a user logs in from  /usr/share/applications/program.desktop to /etc/xdg/autostart   folder.

For example, if you wish to auto start Firefox automatically when you login, copy firefox.desktop from /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop to the /etc/xdg/autostart. folder.

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart

To remove it, run the command below:

sudo rm /etc/xdg/autostart/firefox.desktop

Remember to copy programs that end with the .desktop extensions.

That’s it!