blog: 2015-10-17-antergos_change_login_dm.md

_posts/2015-10-17-antergos_change_login_dm.md

@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+---
+layout: post
+comments: true
+title: "Changing Display Manager (login screen) with Antergos"
+category: [english]
+tags: [arch, linux, display manager, antergos]
+---
+
+*Also applies to Arch & other distributions based on it, how do you change
+ the display manager, aka login screen.*
+
+* `--needed` makes pacman not install packages that are already installed.
+* uncommented line = line that doesn't begin with `#`.
+* to change DM you don't need to reboot, you can also
+  `sudo systemctl stop olddm` and `sudo systemctl start newdm`, but this
+  logs you out.
+* my personal recommendation is using LightDM if it works for you,
+  otherwise sddm. I personally use LightDM, because sddm is missing
+  support for `sudo passwd -de user` [sddm/sddm#472](https://github.com/sddm/sddm/issues/472)
+
+## LightDM gtk greeter
+
+*Most of issues with LightDM seem to be caused by the Antergos greeter so
+ I also tell how to change it to lightdm-gtk-greeter.*
+
+* `sudo pacman --needed -S lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter accountsservice numlockx`
+
+Edit the file `/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf` and find the uncommented line
+that starts with `greeter-session=` and change it to
+`greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter`.
+
+If you have keyboard with [numpad] you might want to enable Num Lock by
+default by finding the uncommented line starting with
+`greeter-setup-script=` and changing it to
+`greeter-setup-script=/usr/bin/numlockx on`. If there isn't uncommented
+line anywhere in the file, just uncomment one or add it under the commented
+line.
+
+Then enable it by running `sudo systemctl enable -f lightdm` and reboot.
+
+## sddm
+
+* `sudo pacman --needed -S sddm`
+
+SDDM is simple display manager for all desktop environments and is
+successor of KDM which is the KDE Display Manager.
+
+To create a config file and enable it for next reboot:
+
+```
+sddm --example-config | sudo tee /etc/sddm.conf
+sudo systemctl enable -f sddm
+```
+
+The lines you might want to change are the one starting with `Nucmlock=`
+and I recommend changing it to `Numlock=on` if you have the [numpad]. The
+other line starts with `Current=` and is used to select the current theme.
+Available themes can be seen with `ls /usr/share/sddm/themes`.
+
+KDE users might also want to install `sddm-kcm` which gives GUI
+for controlling sddm.
+
+## gdm
+
+* `sudo pacman --needed -S gdm`
+
+The last display manager I am mentioning is the Gnome Display Manager and
+is only for Gnome users and I am not so familiar with it and I believe
+using it is just `sudo systemctl enable -f gdm`.
+
+[numpad]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/numpad