Well done on the writeup, venam. I use a pretty simple .xinitrc these days, and have generally stayed away from display managers as they seemed unnecessary vs a simple script.

I remember the old days, back when I first started to use Debian... wrapping my head around early 2000's X configuration was real difficult for a complete newbie with no internet access at home. I basically had to fiddle with it until I got stuck, then use the computers at school to lookup information. I was also lucky that the local library had an excellent selection of UNIX and Linux books that I would check out constantly.