Introduction to Lightdm
The lightdm package contains a lightweight
display manager based upon GTK.
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
Note
Development versions of BLFS may not build or run
some packages properly if LFS or dependencies have been updated
since the most recent stable versions of the books.
Lightdm Package Information
Additional download
Note
The greeter is a program to present a graphical login screen. There
are several alternative greeters, but the gtk+ package is the reference
implementation. For a list of other greeters, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightDM.
Lightdm Dependencies
Required
Exo-4.18.0 (for the greeter),
libgcrypt-1.10.3,
itstool-2.0.7,
Linux-PAM-1.5.3, and
Xorg-Server-21.1.9 (Runtime)
Recommended
gobject-introspection-1.78.1,
libxklavier-5.4, and
Vala-0.56.14
Optional
AccountsService-23.13.9 (run time),
at-spi2-core-2.50.0,
GTK-Doc-1.33.2,
(Qt-5.15.11 or qt-alternate-5.15.11),
libido, and
libindicator
Installation of Lightdm
First, create a dedicated user and group to take
control of the lightdm daemon after it is
started. Issue the following commands as the
root user:
groupadd -g 65 lightdm &&
useradd -c "Lightdm Daemon" \
-d /var/lib/lightdm \
-u 65 -g lightdm \
-s /bin/false lightdm
Install lightdm by running the following
commands:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--libexecdir=/usr/lib/lightdm \
--localstatedir=/var \
--sbindir=/usr/bin \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--disable-static \
--disable-tests \
--with-greeter-user=lightdm \
--with-greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter \
--docdir=/usr/share/doc/lightdm-1.32.0 &&
make
This package does not come with a test suite.
Now, as the root user:
make install &&
cp tests/src/lightdm-session /usr/bin &&
sed -i '1 s/sh/bash --login/' /usr/bin/lightdm-session &&
rm -rf /etc/init &&
install -v -dm755 -o lightdm -g lightdm /var/lib/lightdm &&
install -v -dm755 -o lightdm -g lightdm /var/lib/lightdm-data &&
install -v -dm755 -o lightdm -g lightdm /var/cache/lightdm &&
install -v -dm770 -o lightdm -g lightdm /var/log/lightdm
Now build the greeter:
tar -xf ../lightdm-gtk-greeter-2.0.8.tar.gz &&
cd lightdm-gtk-greeter-2.0.8 &&
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--libexecdir=/usr/lib/lightdm \
--sbindir=/usr/bin \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--with-libxklavier \
--enable-kill-on-sigterm \
--disable-libido \
--disable-libindicator \
--disable-static \
--disable-maintainer-mode \
--docdir=/usr/share/doc/lightdm-gtk-greeter-2.0.8 &&
make
Now, as the root user:
make install
Note
If you installed Xorg in /opt, you will need to create a symbolic
link so lightdm can find the Xorg server. As the
root user:
ln -sf /opt/xorg/bin/Xorg /usr/bin/X
Command Explanations
sed ... /usr/bin/lightdm-session:
This command ensures that the initial login via the greeter sources
/etc/profile and ~/.bash_profile. Without this, commands that depend on
different environment variables may not work as expected.
Configuring lightdm
Config Files
/etc/lightdm/{lightdm,users,keys}.conf
Available Sessions
The greeter offers a list of available sessions,
depending on the Window Managers and Desktop Environments installed. The
list includes sessions which have a corresponding
.desktop file installed under
/usr/share/xsessions. Most of the
Window Managers and Desktop Environments automatically provide those
files, but if necessary, you may include a custom one.