LightDM Install and Configure

LightDM Install and Configure

What is LightDM?

LightDM is the display manager running in Ubuntu. It starts the X servers, user sessions and greeter (login screen). The default greeter in Ubuntu is Unity Greeter.

Configuration

Later versions of lightdm (15.10 onwards) have replaced the obsolete [SeatDefaults] with [Seat:*]

LightDM configuration is provided by the following files:

/usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/*.conf
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/*.conf
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

System provided configuration is stored in /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/*.conf and is not user editable. System administrators can override this configuration in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/*.conf and /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf. Files are read in the above order and combined together to make the LightDM configuration.

For example, if you want to override the system configured default session (provided in /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-ubuntu.conf) you should make a file /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-myconfig.conf with the following:

[SeatDefaults]
user-session=mysession

An example file showing all the possible configuration is provided in /usr/share/doc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.gz.

There is an additional config file:

/etc/lightdm/users.conf

but this config file will be ignored if accountsservice is running on your system (if you are unsure, check from a shell prompt with the command ps -aef | grep accountsservice).

Disabling Guest Login

By default LightDM allows you to log into a session as a temporary user; disable this with:

[SeatDefaults]
allow-guest=false

Hiding the User List

Unity Greeter (and some other greeters) shows the list of possible user accounts by default. If you want to disable this (you have too many users or security concerns) use the following configuration. You may also want to explicitly enable manual login with this feature.

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-hide-users=true

Allow Manual Login

Unity Greeter (and some other greeters) don't allow you to enter a username to log in with by default. You can enable this with:

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-show-manual-login=true

Setting an Automatic Login

To set the system to automatically start with a logged in user set the autologin-user. If autologin-user-timeout is set the greeter will be shown for this many seconds before the automatic login occurs. User activity will cancel this timeout.

[SeatDefaults]
autologin-user=username
autologin-user-timeout=delay

If you want to set the automatic login to be a guest session then set:

autologin-guest=true

Changing the Default Session

The default session is set by configuration in /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/ that session packages provide. If you need to override this you can set:

[SeatDefaults]
user-session=name

Where name is the name of the session .desktop file from /usr/share/xsessions/*.desktop.

Changing the Greeter

The greeter is set by configuration in /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/ that greeter packages provide. If you need to override this you can set:

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=name

Where name is the name of the greeter .desktop file from /usr/share/xgreeters/*.desktop.

Adding System Hooks

If you need some special behaviour when X servers and user sessions start/stop you can set commands to be run with the following configuration:

[SeatDefaults]
display-setup-script=command
display-stopped-script=command (Not in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS)
greeter-setup-script=command
session-setup-script=command
session-cleanup-script=command
session-wrapper=command
greeter-wrapper=command (Not in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS)

display-setup-script is run after the X server starts but before the user session / greeter is run. Set this if you need to configure anything special in the X server. It is run as root. If this command returns an error code the X server is stopped.

display-stopped-script is run after an X server exits. It is run as root.

greeter-setup-script is run before a greeter starts. It is run as root. If this command returns an error code the greeter fails to start (which will cause LightDM to stop).

session-setup-script is run before a user session starts. If this command returns an error the session will not start (user is returned to a greeter).

session-cleanup-script is run after a greeter or user session stops. It is run as root.

session-wrapper is a the command to run for a session. This command is run as the user and needs to exec the command passed in the arguments to complete running the session. Use this if you need to do special setup for a user session. Note the default is 'lightdm-session' so you should chain to this if you need to override this setting.

greeter-wrapper is a the command to run a greeter. It is the equivalent of session-wrapper for greeters.

Changing the Wallpaper

LightDM does not configure the look of greeters; to do this configure the appropriate greeter.

Unity Greeter by default shows the currently selected users background. To set the default background and stop the switching edit /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/10_unity_greeter_background.gschema.override

[com.canonical.unity-greeter]
draw-user-backgrounds=false
background='/foo/wallpaper.png'

And run sudo glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/ to apply these settings.

For LightDM GTK+ greeter edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf:

background=/usr/share/lubuntu/wallpapers/lubuntu-default-wallpaper.png

Help, I can't see my Desktop!

Many things can go wrong in a graphics stack. If you can't see any graphics or see corrupt graphics the following might help:

• You can get to a text terminal using alt-ctrl-F1.
• Check the LightDM logs in /var/log/lightdm.
• Stop LightDM with sudo stop lightdm.
• You can try LightDM again with sudo start lightdm.
• If you have another display manager you want to try (e.g. gdm) start that: sudo start gdm.
• You can set the default display manager by running sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm.
• Check your system is up to date, especially video drivers.
• File a bug. If you're not sure where the cause is (lightdm / unity-greeter / unity / X / kernel) file against lightdm and the bug will be triaged and reassigned.

Reporting Problems

To file a bug run the following from a terminal:

ubuntu-bug lightdm

All appropriate information/logs are attached to the bug report.

*********************************************
 
now Ubuntu does not use GDM as its display manager in version 12.04...It uses lightdm as its display manager...
So the screen you want is actually lightdm.
So you will have to install lightdm as follows.
Enter these commands in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install lightdm

Install lightdm

---

After installing lightdm enter the following commands to set lightdm as the default display manager:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

Then you will get the following screen:

hit enter and then you will get this screen:

Navigate your option to lightdm and hit enter.
Now Restart.
you'll get your screen :)

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Ubuntu 16.04 Login Screen Issues

This post is not meant to be a how to, but rather a compilation commands that could be helpful in trying to fix issues with the login screen after an upgrade.
These commands should be executed from a prompt, you can get to one using the ctrl+alt+f1 (you can replace f1 with any of the function keys from 1-7), or you can boot up from recovery, or you could mount the drive and chroot into it.

Reinstall Desktop and Login Manager

sudo apt-get install --reinstall lightdm ubuntu-desktop

If your using using Gnome Shell

sudo apt-get install --reinstall gdm3 gnome-shell

Reconfigure lightdm, set it as the default login manager

sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

Replace GDM with LightDM

sudo apt-get remove gdm3 
sudo apt-get install lightdm

Installing GDM (Gnome Login Manager)

sudo apt-get install gdm3

Remove Intel video and Plymouth

sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel plymouth

Reboot, get to a prompt and reinstall login manager, replace lightdm with whatever one your using

sudo apt-get install --reinstall lightdm

Reinstall Intel video and Plymouth

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel plymouth

Install Ubuntu Gnome Desktop
This seems to solve some of the issues with GDM3 not starting up.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop