[systemd-devel] devilspie2 user service issues

[Matt Zagrabelny]

Greetings,

I am trying to write a service file for a tool called devilspie2.

% systemctl --user cat devilspie.service
# /home/mzagrabe/.config/systemd/user/devilspie.service
[Unit]
Description=devilspie

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/devilspie2

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

which I enabled via:

% systemctl --user enable devilspie.service

but it is not successfully starting on boot/login:

% systemctl --user status devilspie.service
● devilspie.service - devilspie
   Loaded: loaded (/home/mzagrabe/.config/systemd/user/devilspie.service;
enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2019-08-06 13:39:23 CDT;
3min 14s ago
  Process: 826 ExecStart=/usr/bin/devilspie2 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 826 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: Started devilspie.
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: devilspie.service: Main process
exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: devilspie.service: Failed with
result 'exit-code'.

The actual reason isn't making it into the systemctl output, but does show
in the journal (under the "unknown" log entry [826]):

% journalctl --user --since '10 minutes ago'
[...]
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: Started devilspie.
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: Reached target Default.
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: Startup finished in 27ms.
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: Started D-Bus User Message Bus.
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone unknown[826]: cannot open display:
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: devilspie.service: Main process
exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Aug 06 13:39:23 tombstone systemd[815]: devilspie.service: Failed with
result 'exit-code'.

So...

It looks like devilspie2 does not successfully start under a user systemd
instance due to "cannot open display".

Since I log in via lightdm I am wondering what I am missing.

Any ideas or pointers on how to properly start devilspie2 under a user
systemd instance?

Thanks for any help!

-m
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