LXDM

Related articles
LXDE
Display manager
LXDM is a lightweight
display manager
for the
LXDE
desktop environment
.
LXDM does not support the
XDMCP
protocol. An alternative that does is
LightDM
.
Installation
Install
the
lxdm
package.
Follow
Display manager#Loading the display manager
to LXDM at boot.
Configuration
The configuration files for LXDM are all located in
/etc/lxdm/
. The main configuration file is
lxdm.conf
. Its format is documented in its comments. Another file,
Xsession
, is the systemwide x session configuration file and should generally not be edited. All other files in this directory are shell scripts, which are run when certain events happen in LXDM.
These are:
LoginReady
is executed with root privileges when LXDM is ready to show the login window.
PreLogin
is run as root before logging a user in.
PostLogin
is run as the logged-in user right after they have logged in.
PostLogout
is run as the logged-in user right after they have logged out.
PreReboot
is run as root before rebooting with LXDM.
PreShutdown
is run as root before poweroff with LXDM.
Default session
The default session can be set globally, as well as set at an individual-user level. Individual user preferences take precedence over globally set preferences for the user in question.
Globally
Edit
/etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf
and change the session line to whatever session or DE is desired:
session=/usr/bin/startlxde
Example using
Xfce
:
session=/usr/bin/startxfce4
Example using
Openbox
:
session=/usr/bin/openbox-session
Example using
GNOME
:
session=/usr/bin/gnome-session
This is useful for themes that have no visible session selection box, and if experiencing trouble using autologin.
Per user
To define an individual user's preferred session, simply edit their respective
~/.dmrc
to define the selection.
Example: user1 wants Xfce4, user2 wants
Cinnamon
, and user3 wants GNOME:
For user1:
[Desktop]
Session=xfce
For user2:
[Desktop]
Session=cinnamon
For user3:
[Desktop]
Session=gnome
The list of installed sessions can be displayed by using command:
$ ls /usr/share/xsessions/
Autologin
To log in to one account automatically on startup, without providing a password, find the line in
/etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf
that looks like this:
#autologin=dgod
Uncomment it, substituting the target user instead of
dgod
.
Last used options
Previously used LXDM options can be found in:
/var/lib/lxdm/lxdm.conf
[base]
last_session=/usr/share/xsessions/LXDE.desktop
last_lang=sv_SE.UTF-8
last_langs=sv_SE.UTF-8 fa_IR.UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8
Note
This file is not automatically removed when uninstalling LXDM. It must be removed manually if you want to remove all traces of LXDM options.
Tips and tricks
Adding face icons
A 96x96 px image (jpg or png) can optionally be displayed on a per-user basis, replacing the stock icon. Copy or symlink the target image to
$HOME/.face
. The
gnome-control-center
package supplies some default icons suitable for the lxdm screen. Look under
/usr/share/pixmaps/faces
after installing that package.
Note
Users need not keep
gnome-control-center
installed to use face icons. Install it, copy the images elsewhere, and remove it.
The user home directory must have r-x permissions for others and the .face file must have r-- permissions for others. This may be undesirable from a security and access perspective if your system has other users: it means anyone else can browse your home directory.
A graphical tool
lxdm-config
shipped with lxdm can be used to place a
.face
file in the home directory, along with other configuration.
Simultaneous users and switching users
LXDM allows multiple users to be logged into different TTYs simultaneously. The following command is used to allow another user to log in without logging out the current user:
$ lxdm -c USER_SWITCH
Note
When the new user logs in, their session is now on the NEXT TTY from tty7. For example, user1 logs in and issues the USER_SWITCH command. Now user2 logs in. User2 will be on tty7 while user1 will be on tty1.
Themes
The LXDM themes are located in
/usr/share/lxdm/themes
.
There is only one theme provided with LXDM: Industrial. To display the background file
wave.svg
which is part of this theme, install
librsvg
.
lxdm-themes
AUR
provides 6 extra themes: Archlinux, ArchlinuxFull, ArchlinuxTop, Arch-Dark, Arch-Stripes, and IndustrialArch.
Choice of theme is configurable in
/etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf
:
## the theme of greeter
theme=theme_name
You can also configure LXDM to use a GTK theme (stored in
/usr/share/themes
) in
/etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf
:
## GTK theme
gtk_theme=gtk_theme_name
Advanced Session Configuration
After a user logs on, LXDM sources
all
of the following files, in the below order:
/etc/profile
~/.profile
/etc/xprofile
~/.xprofile
These files can be used to set session environment variables and to start services which  must set certain environment variables in order for clients in the session to be able to use the service, like ssh-agent. See
Xprofile
for details.
Note that LXDM does
not
source
~/.xinitrc
, so those migrating from a DM that
does
use this file, like
SLiM
, will have to move their settings elsewhere — probably
~/.xprofile
. Also note LXDM does not source
~/.bash_profile
.
If you still want to use your
~/.xinitrc
file, you can add a line to the
/etc/lxdm/PostLogin
event file:
source ~/.xinitrc
LXDM also makes use of .
Xresources
, .
Xkbmap
, and .
Xmodmap
. See
/etc/lxdm/Xsession
for details on how LXDM uses system-wide and per-user configuration files to configure the session.
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Troubleshooting
White flash
When using the default LXDM
theme=Industrial
and a dark background image (e.g.
bg=/usr/share/backgrounds/img.png
) there may be a short bright flash before LXDM starts. This is caused by the
bg_color:
property of the selected
GTK
theme. To avoid this change
gtk_theme=Adwaita
to
gtk_theme=Adwaita-dark
or to another dark theme.
Logout Issue
If you had trouble logging out when using lxdm (e.g. stuck, display freeze, etc..) try uncomment the
reset=1
option in
/etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf
to refresh xserver on every logout.