Do you use a display manager?

hazel · 10-14-2018, 03:19 AM

My Debian system uses lightdm and I haven't made any attempt to alter that because I regard Debian as an integrated system which is best not meddled with. But I have not installed a display manager in either Crux or LFS. I use startx because it's conceptually simpler.

jsbjsb001 · 10-14-2018, 04:03 AM

Great idea for a thread Hazel!

I must admit that I didn't know you could just use startx instead of a display manager (I've never bothered to find out either but). Thanks for the info!

Needless to say, I voted "Yes, graphical login". I'm the same BTW - I don't meddle with the system like that either.

////// · 10-14-2018, 04:58 AM

depends on what box i am using.

fedora - graphical login
openbsd - startxfce4
other linuses (usually) - startx

ondoho · 10-14-2018, 06:34 AM

the boxes i set up for myself do not have a display manager.
initially it can be tricky because some servcies are started, and some environment stuff set, automagically by the display manager, but once you got that figured out it's simply one superfluous layer of software removed.

and i love the granular control i have over things with shell-script-like init files.

FredGSanford · 10-14-2018, 08:21 AM

I do use DMs with my setups, usually LXDM. At one point lightdm gave me problems using the Switch User feature. I share the desktop with the family and it would be easier to use a DM.

ondoho · 10-14-2018, 08:23 AM

^ a multi-user setup?
yes, that makes perfect sense.
all my systems are single-user.

average_user · 10-14-2018, 08:33 AM

I used to log in tty and run startx manually because it's the default behavior in Slackware but these days I use xdm, it works well for me with no frills. I noticed that I've almost always started X session, mainly for Firefox and xdm saves me a few keystrokes. xdm has some quirks though, for example it uses cpp internally and might be quite fragile depending on your setup, for example: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...dm-4175553157/

hazel · 10-14-2018, 08:40 AM

You don't find xdm ugly? Very few people use it nowadays for that reason.

average_user · 10-14-2018, 08:42 AM

No, I find it very simple and therefore attractive. I also use fluxbox so maybe it's just my taste.

sevendogsbsd · 10-14-2018, 09:18 AM

Yes: SDDM. My hardware is flaky and with the Nvidia driver, I cannot drop back out of X to a TTY without the display going into DPMS mode. Does this on multiple operating systems: Linux and BSD. This is unrecoverable and the only thing I can do at that point is hit the power button to trigger a shutdown or ctl+alt+del to trigger a reboot.

SDDM works perfectly for me but I do wish for FreeBSD anyway, that I could get back to a TTY because I typically do maintenance at that level and then startx after.

scasey · 10-14-2018, 10:33 AM

Qualified: I use a display manager on this desktop. I don't run graphical at all on my server.

mralk3 · 10-14-2018, 11:32 AM

I use run level 3 for my Slackware, Fedora, and CentOs systems. I don't like the gnome dm on CentOs or Fedora. Runlevel 3 is default on Slackware and I don't like KDE dm.

The last display manager I ran was on Debian in 2014, qingy dm.

http://qingy.sourceforge.net

cwizardone · 10-14-2018, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazel

....I use startx because it's conceptually simpler.

Agreed.
I've always used startx and probably always will.

pan64 · 10-14-2018, 12:12 PM

yes, there is a desktop with gnome and also there are low end hosts (like rpi3) without GUI. Actually dm is installed, but not always in use.

fido_dogstoyevsky · 10-14-2018, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazel

...I use startx because it's conceptually simpler [with Crux or LFS].

It's now my default for this reason. I started doing this when I went to Slackware; I tried a graphical login for about a month but startx just feels more comfortable.