How To Switch Between GDM, LightDM Or KDM In Ubuntu [Quick Tip]

(GDM 3 in Ubuntu 11.10)

Let's say you have both LightDM and GDM display managers installed on your computer (running Ubuntu or any other Debian-based Linux distribution). LightDM is default but you want to switch to GDM - to do this, run the command below in a terminal:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm

This will display something like this:

Select the display manager you want to use by default and hit enter. Then, restart your computer.

If GDM is installed, you can run the same command ("sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm") to switch to any display manager, be it LightDM, KDM, Slim, GDM and so on. If GDM is not installed, replace "gdm" in the command above with one of the installed display managers (example: "sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm").

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GDM3Setup: GUI To Change GDM3 Wallpaper, Theme, Logo And More

Last week we've posted about changing the GNOME 3 login screen background / GTK3 theme via command line but if you want to use a GUI for this, you'll be glad to know that one already exists: GDM3Setup.

GDM3Setup is a simple GUI tool to tweak GDM3 (GNOME3 login screen). Using it, you can change the following GDM3 settings: wallpaper, GTK3 theme, icon theme, logo, disable the login screen user list or restart buttons.

GDM3Setup is already available in AUR for ArchLinux users. As for Fedora 15, a small tweak is required to get it to work (see below).

In my test, GDM3Setup didn't work in Ubuntu, but it doesn't really matter anyway because Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot will use LightDM instead of GDM by default.

Get GDM3Setup to work in Fedora

1. Firstly, install "git-core" and then get GDM3Setup using the command below:

cd
git clone https://github.com/Nano77/gdm3setup.git

2. To get GDM3Setup to work on Fedora, you must install "beesu" (a gksu alternative for Fedora) and replace "gksu" with "beesu" in the gdm3setup.py file. The commands below will take care of all this automatically:

sudo yum install beesu
sed -i 's/gksu/beesu/g' ~/gdm3setup/gdm3setup.py

3. Now you can launch GDM3Setup in Fedora by going to the "gdm3setup" folder in your home directory and then doublickinging the "gdm3setup.py" file. You can also install it if you want, by using the commands below (after this, you'll be able to launch GDM3Setup from the menu):

sudo install -D ~/gdm3setup/gdm3setup.desktop /usr/share/applications/gdm3setup.desktop
sudo install --mode=755 -D ~/gdm3setup/gdm3setup.py /usr/bin/gdm3setup.py
sudo cp -r ~/gdm3setup/locale/ /usr/share/locale/

If you want to use "su -" instead of sudo, make sure you enter the exact path to where you've downloaded GDM3Setup (e.g.: /home/YOUR_USERNAME/gdm3setup).

Once you run GDM3Setup, click the "Load" button to load your default settings, then change the wallpaper, theme or any GDM3 option you want and click "Apply".

Important: to be able to change the GDM3 login screen wallpaper, the image must be copied to /usr/share/backgrounds/ and the themes under /usr/share/themes/.

Thanks to Володимир Назарчук for the tip and Lffl.org for reminding me to post this :)

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How To Change GNOME 3 Login Screen (GDM3) Background / Theme [Quick Tip]

Unfortunately, some of the applications (like GDM Tweaker) you could use to change the GDM login screen background / GTK theme no longer work with GNOME 3 / GDM 3, so here is how to change the GDM3 theme or background manually, via command line.

Update: this doesn't seem to work in Ubuntu (both 11.04 and 11.10), but it works in Fedora and Arch.


To change the GNOME 3 (with GDM3) login screen background, use the following commands:

su -
su - gdm -s /bin/bash
`dbus-launch | sed "s/^/export /"`
GSETTINGS_BACKEND=dconf gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri "file:///usr/share/backgrounds/FILE.JPG"

In the last command above, replace "FILE.JPG" with the picture you want to use as the GDM3 login screen background.

Please note that you must specify a file which user "gdm" has permission to read, that's why I've used file:///usr/share/backgrounds/. For instance, user "gdm" cannot read files in your home directory.

In the same way you can also change the GNOME 3 login screen GTK theme (first 3 commands are the same):

su -
su - gdm -s /bin/bash
`dbus-launch | sed "s/^/export /"`
GSETTINGS_BACKEND=dconf gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme "THEME_NAME"

Where "THEME_NAME" is the name of the theme, e.g.: "Zukitwo". The themes must be placed under /usr/share/themes/.

Most of the info thanks to the ArchLinux Wiki.

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