The ToolTalk service does not use X messages or protocols to deliver messages. The ToolTalk service is only associated with X Windows if you run an X session.
When you run an X session, the session name is advertised as a property
(named TT_SESSION
) on the root
window of the X server. Every process which names that X server as its display
gets that X session as its default session. Since the X session is defined
to be the group of processes displaying on a particular X display, you do
need to run X Windows by definition but not because the
ToolTalk service requires you to use it.
If there is no X server running at all (for example, you are running
a session that consists entirely of character-mode applications running on
a dumb terminal), use a process tree session. When you
run a process tree session, the session name is advertised in the environment
variable TT_SESSION
. This session
is the default session for every process in the tree of processes descending
from the process that set the environment variable.