Display manager - ArchWiki

# Display manager

From ArchWiki

Related articles

- Desktop environment
- Window manager
- Start X at login

A display manager, or login manager, is typically a graphical user interface that is displayed at the end of the boot process in place of the default shell. There are various implementations of display managers, just as there are various types of window managers and desktop environments. There is usually a certain amount of customization and themeability available with each one.

## List of display managers

### Console

- CDM — Ultra-minimalistic, yet full-featured login manager written in Bash.

  https://github.com/ghost1227/cdm || cdm-gitAUR

- Console TDM — Extension for xinit written in pure Bash.

  https://github.com/dopsi/console-tdm || console-tdmAUR

- nodm — Minimalistic display manager for automatic logins.

  https://github.com/spanezz/nodm || nodm

- Ly — Experimental ncurses display manager.

  https://github.com/cylgom/ly || ly-gitAUR

### Graphical

- GDM — GNOME display manager.

  https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GDM || gdm

- LightDM — Cross-desktop display manager, can use various front-ends written in any toolkit.

  https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/LightDM/ || lightdm

- LXDM — LXDE display manager. Can be used independent of the LXDE desktop environment.

  https://sourceforge.net/projects/lxdm/ || lxdm

- SDDM — QML-based display manager and successor to KDE4's kdm; recommended for Plasma 5 and LXQt.

  https://github.com/sddm/sddm || sddm

- XDM — X display manager with support for XDMCP, host chooser.

  xdm(1) || xorg-xdm

## Loading the display manager

To enable graphical login, enable the appropriate systemd service. For example, for SDDM, enable `sddm.service`.

This should work out of the box. If not, you might have to reset a custom `default.target` symlink to point to the default `graphical.target`.

After enabling SDDM a symlink `display-manager.service` should be set in `/etc/systemd/system/`. You may need to use `--force` to override old symlinks.

    $ file /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

    /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service: symbolic link to /usr/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service

### Using systemd-logind

In order to check the status of your user session, you can use loginctl. All polkit actions like suspending the system or mounting external drives will work out of the box.

    $ loginctl show-session $XDG_SESSION_ID

## Session configuration

Many display managers read available sessions from `/usr/share/xsessions/` directory. It contains standard desktop entry files for each DM/WM.

To add/remove entries to your display manager's session list; create/remove the .desktop files in `/usr/share/xsessions/` as desired. A typical .desktop file will look something like:

    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=Openbox
    Comment=Log in using the Openbox window manager (without a session manager)
    Exec=/usr/bin/openbox-session
    TryExec=/usr/bin/openbox-session
    Icon=openbox.png
    Type=Application

### Run ~/.xinitrc as a session

Installing xinit-xsessionAUR will provide an option to run your xinitrc as a session. Simply set `xinitrc` as the session in your display manager's settings and make sure that the `~/.xinitrc` file is executable.

### Starting applications without a window manager

You can also launch an application without any decoration, desktop, or window management. For example to launch google-chromeAUR create a `web-browser.desktop` file in `/usr/share/xsessions/` like this:

    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=Web Browser
    Comment=Use a web browser as your session
    Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome --auto-launch-at-startup
    TryExec=/usr/bin/google-chrome --auto-launch-at-startup
    Icon=google-chrome
    Type=Application

In this case, once you login, the application set with `Exec` will be launched immediately. When you close the application, you will be taken back to the login manager (same as logging out of a normal DE/WM).

It is important to remember that most graphical applications are not intended to be launched this way and you might have manual tweaking to do or limitations to live with (there is no window manager, so do not expect to be able to move or resize any windows, including dialogs; nonetheless, you might be able to set the window geometry in the application's configuration files).

See also xinitrc#Starting applications without a window manager.

## Tips and tricks

### Autostarting

Most display managers source `/etc/xprofile`, `~/.xprofile` and `/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/`. For more details, see xprofile.

### Set language for user session

For display managers that use AccountsService the locale for the user session can be set by editing:

    /var/lib/AccountsService/users/$USER

    [User]
    Language=your_locale

where your_locale is a value such as `en_GB.UTF-8`.

Log out and then back in again for the changes to take effect.

Category:

- Display managers