Introduction to Lightdm
The lightdm package contains a lightweight
display manager based upon GTK.
This package is known to build and work properly
using an LFS 11.3 platform.
Lightdm Package Information
Additional download
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
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-1.10.1,
itstool-2.0.7,
Linux-PAM-1.5.2, and
Xorg-Server-21.1.7 (Runtime)
Recommended
gobject-introspection-1.74.0,
libxklavier-5.4, and
Vala-0.56.4
Optional
AccountsService-22.08.8 (run time),
at-spi2-core-2.46.0,
GTK-Doc-1.33.2,
Qt-5.15.8,
libido, and
libindicator
User Notes:
https://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/lightdm
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
Then change the Linux-PAM configuration files
so that elogind is used:
sed -i s/systemd/elogind/ data/pam/*
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
Boot Script
To start lightdm automatically when the system is
switched to runlevel 5, install the
/etc/rc.d/init.d/xdm script and the
/etc/sysconfig/xdm configuration file
included in the blfs-bootscripts-20230101 package
and adjust /etc/inittab by running
as the root user:
make install-lightdm
Starting lightdm
The lightdm greeter can be started from the
command line as the root
user:
telinit 5
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.