Display manager

A display manager, sometimes known as login manager or abbreviated as DM, Article description::presents the user with a graphical login screen to start an [[X server session.]]

Available software
More than half a dozen display managers are available in the Gentoo ebuild repository. The following is a non-exhaustive list, presented in alphabetical order:

Configuration
In major Linux operating systems display managers are started automatically on boot. In order for this to happen automatically a script must be added to the proper init system's runlevel. Examples for OpenRC and Systemd are provided below.

Be careful to read the documentation for each display manager, as slightly different configuration will be required. For more information see the respective wiki entry for the display manager of choice.

OpenRC
Under most circumstances the OpenRC init system (Gentoo's default init system) will be used to start the display manager. The XDM init script handles the starting of the display manager. Configuration of the file is needed to set a default display manager for the system.

The following examples will set SDDM to be the default display manager. Adjust as necessary for other display managers.

To start SDDM on boot, add the XDM init script to the system's default runlevel:

To start SDDM immediately, run:

systemd
If using systemd as the init system, first locate a file.

To start SDDM on boot, enable the following service:

To start SDDM immediately run this command: