LightDM is a free and open-source X display manager that aims to be lightweight, fast, extensible and desktop environment agnostic. It can use various front-ends to draw the user interface, also called Greeters. It also supports Wayland.
LightDM is the default display manager for Edubuntu, Xubuntu and Mythbuntu since the 11.10 release, for Lubuntu since the 12.04 release until 16.10, for Kubuntu beginning with 12.10 until 15.04 for Linux MintNew features in Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon (go down or search for LightDM), retrieved 2017-07-02 and EndeavourOS.
Features Features include: Codebase with very few dependencies Supports different display technologies (X11 and Wayland through Mir) Supports remote login (incoming – XDMCP, VNC, outgoing – XDMCP, pluggable) Comprehensive test suite Standards-compliance (PAM, logind, etc.) Well-defined interface between the server and user interface Cross-desktop (greeters can be written in any toolkit) Well-defined greeter API allowing multiple GUIs Support for all display manager use cases, with plug-ins where appropriate
LightDM has a simpler code base than GDM and does not load any GNOME libraries to work, but at the cost of some features that the user may or may not need.
Available greeters LightDM Greeters in active development Name Key feature(s) Version Website Arctica Greeter Greeter for Arctica, fork of Unity Greeter 0.99.1.4 Deepin Greeter Greeter for Deepin 5.0.0 GTK Greeter Greeter for Xubuntu and former GTK reference implementation, former Lubuntu default, Xubuntu default 2.0.8 Mini Greeter Minimalist, single-user. INI configuration 0.5.1 Pantheon Greeter Greeter for elementary OS 7.0.0 Qt5 Greeter Greeter for Qt 5 0.11.1 Slick Greeter Greeter for Linux Mint, fork of Unity Greeter 2.2.7 WebEngine Greeter QtWebEngine-based, C++ rewrite of Web Greeter 3.0 — Web Greeter QtWebEngine-based, continuing Antergos Web Greeter 3.0, allows to create web based themes 3.4.1 WebKit2 Greeter Easy theming 2.0.0 Dormant LightDM Greeters Name Key feature(s) Version WebsiteAntergos Web Greeter Default greeter for Antergos. Uses HTML/JavaScript for theming 2.2.5 Crowd Greeter Demonstration for an OpenGL-based Greeter 0.0.2 GTK Builder Greeter An alternative implementation from LXDE for GTK based on GtkBuilder featuring WYSIWYG theme editing with Glade Interface Designer. 0.2.0 KDE Greeter Plasma 4 integration, Kubuntu default until superseded by SDDM 0.3.2.2 LXQt Greeter Qt-only Greeter for LXQt desktop (formerly Razor Greeter) until superseded by SDDM 0.7 Qt Greeter Reference implementation in Qt — Unity Greeter Former Ubuntu default 15.04.3
See also
SDDM XDM (display manager) GNOME Display Manager
References
External links
Bugs in Debian Bugs in Ubuntu