Simple Desktop Display Manager (SDDM)
This is a wiki page. Be bold and improve it!
If you have any questions about the content on this page, don't hesitate to open a new ticket and we'll do our best to assist you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Desktop_Display_Manager
http://linux.overshoot.tv/etc/sddm.conf
http://linux.overshoot.tv/usr/share/sddm
http://linux.overshoot.tv/x11-misc/sddm
https://github.com/sddm/sddm
Theming
https://github.com/sddm/sddm/wiki/Theming
sddm-greeter --test --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze/
Configuration
/etc/conf.d/xdm
:
DISPLAYMANAGER="sddm"
The variables in your theme's theme.conf.user
override those in theme.conf
.
Video background
Make sure to add sddm user to the video group.
$ sudo gpasswd -a sddm video
User icons
For user avatars:
- Rename images as username.face.icon and place them in the folder
/usr/share/sddm/faces/
or:
- Edit /etc/sddm.conf and change the FaceDir setting.
or:
put a .face.icon file in your home directory
~/.face.icon
Logs
Log handling is one of the major shortcomings of sddm.
1) As can be seen by browsing sddm's official bug tracker, a "black screen" is a common symptom that may be caused by a viarity of mis-configurations. The problem is that users are left, almost litterally, in the dark because there is no explicit log entry that may point the user in the right direction.
2) A "black screen" is itself a major useability issue. sddm should detect the failure to start the session and provide some visible feedback.
3) In some situations, errors that are supposed to be logged are not. See: Error did not get logged, issue #770: https://github.com/sddm/sddm/issues/770
4) Logs such as ~/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log do not include any timestamps, so it is harder to connect the occurence of a bug to specific log entries.
Relevant logs:
- /var/log/sddm.log
- ~/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
- /var/log/messages : search for sddm-helper.
System settings
Simple things can be configured in KDE system settings > Workspace > Startup and shutdown > Login screen (SDDM).
You can change the background. Note that when selecting a new picture as background, the picture will be copied to the theme folder within /usr/share/sddm/themes/. Changing the picture again might leave the old copy of the previous picture in the theme's directory. Pay attention when using videos as background, as it may lead to disk space issues!
Issues related to this page:
Project | Summary | Status | Priority | Category | Last updated | Assigned to |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux software | sddm upgrade: missing logs and missing maui theme | active | normal | bug report | 7 years 42 weeks | |
Linux software | sddm: Add screen locker | active | normal | feature request | 7 years 44 weeks | |
Linux software | sddm: remember last user in tty | active | normal | feature request | 7 years 44 weeks | |
Linux software | sddm: Image: Error decoding: file:video.mp4: Un… | active | normal | bug report | 7 years 42 weeks | |
Linux software | sddm requires systemd to log errors | active | normal | bug report | 7 years 42 weeks | |
Linux software | Support elogind as an alterantive session track… | active | normal | feature request | 7 years 42 weeks | |
Linux software | sddm: unused tty do not expire | active | normal | bug report | 7 years 42 weeks | |
Linux software | sddm breeze: user icons/avatars do not show | active | normal | bug report | 7 years 36 weeks |