On Ubuntu 14.04, I have the login screen shown here: http://www.novatec-inc.com/pub/ubuntuLogin.jpg. Two problems:

1) How do I remove users from this list. For example, I don't want the user "guest" to show. I don't want guests logging in at all. I don't even know where this guest account is coming from as I can't see it in /etc/passwd.

2) The 1st "Mark Foley" user shown is really an Active Domain user Authenticated via winbind. The problem is I have 10 such users, but I have to first ssh in remotely as that AD user before he/she shows up on this page. What I'd like here is simply a blank userId space and NO users shown at all! There's no sense it giving half the User/Password info away to anyone looking at the screen. With just a blank userId field (like ssh text mode login), I could enter any user's ID here and it should authenticate.

the picture shows a login manager, or a display manager.

there's basically 2 approaches to your problem:

- configure ubuntus login manager
- install another login manager, make it the default, and configure it

unfortunately i don't know which one is ubuntus display manager, but it most probably ends in 'dm', and it's files reside in /usr/share/*dm.
there's most probably also a man-page, and then the graphical greeter is most probably seperated from more basic functionality (like disallow guest login).

I did find a solution to this:

mkdir /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/
cat >/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-myconfig.conf
[SeatDefaults]
allow-guest=false
greeter-hide-users=true
greeter-show-manual-login=true

I've no idea where any of that is documented.

I'm now searching for a way to designate the default desktop. Currently it always comes up as the Ubuntu desktop and I want Cinnamon. I'll post back when I find that.

is there no menu or panel in the greeter?

try pressing F1 or some other key.
if that changes sessions, chances are it will remember it and just return to that next time.

As it turns out, even though the Ubuntu desktop logo is shown, it does remember that I used the Cinnamon desktop.

One more issue, after entering the userId and going to the password input, it will sit there forever. No timeout. Is there a way to time this out after some period of time? I don't really like the idea of sitting with the user's ID showing ... forever.

i think some display managers have a seperate screensaver functionality, if that is what you mean.

actually you are asking for so much functionality in your displaymanager that maybe you should consider changing to a full-fledged one. gdm used to be top dog, or anyhow, find the one that suits your needs.

I don't use that Login, but I believe the way you change desktops is to click on the white circle shown in your screenshot.

I found this documentation: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LightDM

Well OK then, perhaps I do need a display manager with more functionality. I know nothing about them as I've really only used the Unix command line for the past 20+ years. This is my first attempt at getting serious with GUI/Desktops. I'll check gdm.

Do other people out there have other recommendations for a fuller-featured display manager for Ubuntu?

There are a tool called Lightdm Greeter tha can be used to custom lightdm appearanace , but the option to edit panel I never used.https://launchpad.net/lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings

Other interesting - http://askubuntu.com/questions/75755...-theme-greeter topic.