4 ms·

1- Tangential, Why "login manager" is called display manager in Linux-speak? 2- Isn't it better to use a login manager that is 1- graphical and 2- uses the sam

1- Tangential, Why "login manager" is called display manager in Linux-speak? 2- Isn't it better to use a login manager that is 1- graphical and 2- uses the same GUI tech as your DE (for example gtk for xfce/gnome and qt for KDE) so the actual GUI apps could be hot-loaded in memory and the initial cold-runs of programs could be faster? Thanks for the project. Seems clean.

rcthompson 4y ago
1. I think the term comes from X11 jargon, where each login session is associated with a display (the thing described by the contents of `$DISPLAY`.
1MachineElf 4y ago
I'm interested in trying this out with i3. I've only just started using i3 and the default lightdm display manager (on NixOS) looks and feels out-of-place with it. Ly seems to be a logical next step.
- doubled112 4y ago
  Are you the only user? Do you always use i3? If yes to both, you could have your bashrc (or you shell's equivalent) start X and i3 on a TTY login? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xinit#Autostart_X_at_login https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xinit#Autostart_X_at_login
  - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
    An even more lazy approach is logging into the console, regardless if textmode or framebuffer, and simply do upward arrow & enter, since whatever starts your session is the last entry in shell history anyways :-) This way there is less surprise/annoyance with flickering/crashing X, like you could have when starting X unconditionally after login, which could happen after you modified something to test. On another console, to not spoil the history for that upward arrow & enter thing ;-) Which works regardless of shell/WM/DE/OS/whatever, at least it does so for me.
  - 1MachineElf 4y ago
    Is this an approach that works well with screen locking, or is a display manager really necessary for that feature?
    - ankurdhama 4y ago
      You don't need display manager to lock screen in i3. Just run or bind a key to run i3lock (or other lockers like slock)
ayushnix 4y ago
> 2- Isn't it better to use a login manager that is 1- graphical and 2- uses the same GUI tech as your DE You're assuming everyone using Linux uses a DE.
sainotbot 4y ago
1: You can login and not start up a display (e.g. when you SSH into a box). The login manager is seperate from the display manager. You don't necessarily have to have a display attached. 2: The display manager starts up a window manager, which figures out where to draw your apps. X11 or Wayland is the underlying tech that KDE, Gnome, etc, uses to manage displays/windows. Ly draws straight to the terminal, which I'm pretty sure is faster. And it allows some flexibility when running multiple window managers. I've found having multiple window managers installed can be a little unstable. SDDM didn't like it, but it works pretty good with Ly.
squarefoot 4y ago
> 2- Isn't it better to use a login manager that is 1- graphical and 2- uses the same GUI tech as your DE A text only login manager could spare some more resources on small systems, since once the desktop environment has been loaded it keeps running anyway. I use LightDM and XFCE for example, and if I look at LightDM memory consumption, the amount although not huge is neither trivial; I guess small embedded devices would benefit from this. $ sudo pmap `pidof lightdm` 2021: lightdm --session-child 14 23 000055728c276000 28K r---- lightdm 000055728c27d000 168K r-x-- lightdm 000055728c2a7000 76K r---- lightdm .... .... total 163696K 1795: /usr/sbin/lightdm 0000555cca10b000 28K r---- lightdm 0000555cca112000 168K r-x-- lightdm 0000555cca13c000 76K r---- lightdm .... .... total 236188K
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

rcthompson 4y ago

1. I think the term comes from X11 jargon, where each login session is associated with a display (the thing described by the contents of `$DISPLAY`.

1MachineElf 4y ago

I'm interested in trying this out with i3. I've only just started using i3 and the default lightdm display manager (on NixOS) looks and feels out-of-place with it. Ly seems to be a logical next step.

doubled112 4y ago
Are you the only user? Do you always use i3? If yes to both, you could have your bashrc (or you shell's equivalent) start X and i3 on a TTY login? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xinit#Autostart_X_at_login https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xinit#Autostart_X_at_login
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  An even more lazy approach is logging into the console, regardless if textmode or framebuffer, and simply do upward arrow & enter, since whatever starts your session is the last entry in shell history anyways :-) This way there is less surprise/annoyance with flickering/crashing X, like you could have when starting X unconditionally after login, which could happen after you modified something to test. On another console, to not spoil the history for that upward arrow & enter thing ;-) Which works regardless of shell/WM/DE/OS/whatever, at least it does so for me.
- 1MachineElf 4y ago
  Is this an approach that works well with screen locking, or is a display manager really necessary for that feature?
  - ankurdhama 4y ago
    You don't need display manager to lock screen in i3. Just run or bind a key to run i3lock (or other lockers like slock)

ayushnix 4y ago

> 2- Isn't it better to use a login manager that is 1- graphical and 2- uses the same GUI tech as your DE You're assuming everyone using Linux uses a DE.

sainotbot 4y ago

1: You can login and not start up a display (e.g. when you SSH into a box). The login manager is seperate from the display manager. You don't necessarily have to have a display attached. 2: The display manager starts up a window manager, which figures out where to draw your apps. X11 or Wayland is the underlying tech that KDE, Gnome, etc, uses to manage displays/windows. Ly draws straight to the terminal, which I'm pretty sure is faster. And it allows some flexibility when running multiple window managers. I've found having multiple window managers installed can be a little unstable. SDDM didn't like it, but it works pretty good with Ly.

squarefoot 4y ago

> 2- Isn't it better to use a login manager that is 1- graphical and 2- uses the same GUI tech as your DE A text only login manager could spare some more resources on small systems, since once the desktop environment has been loaded it keeps running anyway. I use LightDM and XFCE for example, and if I look at LightDM memory consumption, the amount although not huge is neither trivial; I guess small embedded devices would benefit from this. $ sudo pmap `pidof lightdm` 2021: lightdm --session-child 14 23 000055728c276000 28K r---- lightdm 000055728c27d000 168K r-x-- lightdm 000055728c2a7000 76K r---- lightdm .... .... total 163696K 1795: /usr/sbin/lightdm 0000555cca10b000 28K r---- lightdm 0000555cca112000 168K r-x-- lightdm 0000555cca13c000 76K r---- lightdm .... .... total 236188K

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]