XDM
XDM provides a simple and straightforward graphical login prompt.
From xdm(8) § DESCRIPTION:
- Xdm manages a collection of X displays, which may be on the local host or remote servers. The design of xdm was guided by the needs of X terminals as well as The Open Group standard XDMCP, the X Display Manager Control Protocol. Xdm provides services similar to those provided by init, getty and login on character terminals: prompting for login name and password, authenticating the user, and running a "session."
Installation
Install the xorg-xdm package. Then enable xdm.service
.
If you would like to use an Arch Linux theme for XDM, you can optionally install the xdm-archlinux package. If installing the latter package, then do not enable xdm.service
, but instead enable xdm-archlinux.service
.
Configuration
Defining the session
Unlike many more modern display managers such as GDM or LightDM, XDM does not source available sessions from .desktop files located in the /usr/share/xsessions
directory. As such, XDM does not have a 'session menu.' Instead, XDM will execute the file in the home directory.
For example, to start Xfce upon login, the ~/.xsession
file should look like this:
startxfce4
Ensure that the file in your home directory is executable.
Theming
For the exact meanings of the options discussed below, see . The configuration file is located in , notice that if you installed xdm-archlinux the configuration file will instead be located in .
Background wallpaper
Install .
Create a directory to put wallpapers in, e.g /usr/local/share/backgrounds
and then place them inside it.
Edit . Change the command to
Font
- Edit . Add/replace the following defines:
xlogin*greetFont: -adobe-helvetica-bold-o-normal--20------iso8859-1 xlogin*font: -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--14------iso8859-1 xlogin*promptFont: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--14------iso8859-1 xlogin*failFont: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--14------iso8859-1
Login dialog positioning
This configuration will move the login dialog to the bottom right of the screen.
xlogin*frameWidth: 1 xlogin*innerFramesWidth: 1 xlogin*logoPadding: 0 xlogin*geometry: 300x175-0-0
Removing the logo
Comment out the logo defines:
#xlogin*logoFileName: /usr/share/xdm/pixmaps/xorg.xpm #xlogin*logoFileName: /usr/share/xdm/pixmaps/xorg-bw.xpm
Multiple X sessions & Login in the window
With the XDMCP enabled, you can easily connect to local or remote XDM instance and run multiple X sessions simultaneously on the same machine:
# X -query xdmcp-server-ip :2
This command will launch the second session in window using Xephyr:
$ Xephyr -query xdmcp-server-ip :2
Passwordless login
In order to enable passwordless login for XDM, add the line below to :
xlogin*allowNullPasswd: true