Display manager

Not to be confused with window manager.

Resources

Wikipedia

A display manager (DM), sometimes known as login manager, presents the user with a graphical login screen to start a GUI session, either X or Wayland.

A display manager is not mandatory. X or Wayland can be started from a shell in a VT, but a DM can provide extra or useful functionality.

For how to run X without a DM, see X without Display Manager.

Available software

Some display managers are listed below.

Note
Some Wayland DMs below are found in the overlay wayland-desktop, but not yet merged to the official Portage tree.

Name	Package	Type	Description
CDM	x11-misc/cdm	Console	Minimalistic.
GNOME/gdm	gnome-base/gdm	X / Wayland	Often used with GNOME.
greetd	gui-apps/gtkgreet gui-apps/tuigreet gui-apps/qtgreet	Wayland	Frontends for greetd. TUIGreetd runs in console.
LightDM	x11-misc/lightdm	X	Lightweight, and customizable via greeters.
LXDM	lxde-base/lxdm	X	LXDE Display Manager.
Qingy	sys-apps/qingy	console	getty replacement.
SDDM	x11-misc/sddm	X / Wayland	Modern, fast DM aiming to be simple and beautiful. Highly customizable, eye candy display manager from KDE.
SLiM	x11-misc/slim	X	Requires only a few dependencies.
WDM	x11-misc/wdm	X	Modification of XDM.
XDM	x11-apps/xdm	X	X.Org's DM.

Configuration

Warning
Before setting up and using a display manager, be sure that the chosen GUI environment, startx or Wayland, works without problems. If something does not work refer to the troubleshooting guides, such as Xorg/Guide.

In all 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 init system's appropriate runlevel. Examples for OpenRC and systemd are provided below.

OpenRC

Under most circumstances, the OpenRC init system (Gentoo's default init system) will be used to start the display manager. The following examples will set SDDM as the display manager, adjust as necessary for other display managers.

Historically, the xdm init script handled the starting of the display manager, which has now been deprecated in favor of the display-manager init script from gui-libs/display-manager-init, jump to next section for a system still using xdm.

If gui-libs/display-manager-init is not present, emerge it with:

root #emerge --ask gui-libs/display-manager-init

The configuration file should be modified to use SDDM:

FILE /etc/conf.d/display-managerSet SDDM as the display manager

CHECKVT=7
DISPLAYMANAGER="sddm"

To start the chosen display manager on boot, add the display-manager to the system's default runlevel:

root #rc-update add display-manager default

To start the display-manager immediately, run:

root #rc-service display-manager start

Historical use of the deprecated xdm init script

FILE /etc/conf.d/xdmSet SDDM as the display manager

CHECKVT=7
DISPLAYMANAGER="sddm"

To start the chosen display manager on boot, add the xdm to the system's default runlevel:

root #rc-update add xdm default

To start SDDM immediately, run:

root #rc-service xdm start

systemd

If using systemd as the init system, first locate the chosen <display-manager>.service file.

To start SDDM on boot, enable the service:

root #systemctl enable sddm.service

To start SDDM immediately, run:

root #systemctl start sddm.service

See also

• Desktop environment — provides a list of desktop environments available in Gentoo.
• Login — logging in to a shell, and setting up the default environment.
• Window manager — manages the creation, manipulation, and destruction of on-screen windows and window decorations in Xorg.
• Xorg/Guide — explains what Xorg is, how to install it, and the various configuration options.
• X without Display Manager — describes how to start an X11 session without a display manager