Comment 10 for bug 355721

I have tried on Hardy, Intrepid, and Jaunty, and they are all consistent in their behavior where .xsession is concerned. The only way to have .xsession executed is to select the 'Run Xclient script'
session type in gdm. Note that .xsession is not "sourced" in any of these releases, but executed, and when executed, it is responsible for handling all session startup, perhaps by running gnome-session (for example) after performing some additional startup.

All three releases are consistent in their handling of .xsessionrc, too. The purpose of .xsessionrc in all three releases is to handle common session initialization tasks. This file is indeed sourced, if it exists. The same is true of .xprofile. This file is used no matter which gdm session type you choose.

The purpose of .xinitrc is the same as .xsession, except that .xinitrc applies when you run startx (or just xinit) from the command line after a console login, which .xsession is used when you login using a graphical interface like gdm or xdm.

So, if you want a file to be sourced, that file is .xsessionrc, not .xsession. If, on the other hand, you want a script to be executed to startup your X session for you, then you should use .xsession and you should select the 'Run Xclient script' session type.

Please be more clear about exactly what you are doing. Are you logging in through gdm? Are you starting X from within a console login session? And if you are logging in with gdm, which session type did you select? Also, are you expecting the script to be sourced or executed?