Arch Linux

marcello003

Member

Registered: 2019-05-14

Posts: 10

How to avoid that lightdm starts

Hello,
I'm using archlinux and have lxdm installed by default
I installed lightdm too and switched from one to the other one the wrong way, i.e. by doing

cp /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service.lxdm      /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
cp /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service.lightdm  /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

according to the one I wanted to use,
and rebooting.

I know, I know....
I guess I should have just done

ln -s /lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
or
ln -s /lib/systemd/system/lxdm.service /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

according to what I need, and reboot.

Anyway, it worked for a while, then suddenly it started to give me a login mask proper of lxdm, but once logged in ilightdm kicks in
It doesn't matter if I log in as a user or as root

to do systemctl disable lightdm doesn't suffice
to do pacman -S lxdm doesn't suffice

Can you help me?

r0b0t

Member

From: /tmp

Registered: 2009-05-24

Posts: 507

Re: How to avoid that lightdm starts

I tried reading this different time but I'm struggling to understand what's going on here, so far you are trying to get rid of lightdm and replace it with lxdm ?
Did you try to remove lightdm with pacman? It still boots with lightdm?
Have you checked https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LightDM & https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LXDM ?

marcello003

Member

Registered: 2019-05-14

Posts: 10

Re: How to avoid that lightdm starts

Thank you for your reply,
I realized afterwards that maybe I wasn't clear on which one I wanted to disable.

It is lightdm, and your post resolved me to uninstall it. So the problem is solved.
I still wonder why it was starting, since I couldn't find any target in systemd/system that could do it, but I guess with time I will become better able to walk through all these things.

I really like archlinux!

Piri

Member

Registered: 2018-06-02

Posts: 70

Re: How to avoid that lightdm starts

I think one point still needs addressing:

I guess I should have just done

ln -s /lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
or
ln -s /lib/systemd/system/lxdm.service /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

You shouldn't manually ln or cp like that (don't even know where you got that idea from).
Enabling/Disabling  name-of-displaymanager.service will automatically create/remove display-manager.service for you.
See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Di … ay_manager

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,795

Website

Re: How to avoid that lightdm starts

You shouldn't manually ln or cp like that (don't even know where you got that idea from).

Manually symlinking unit files to the relevant target is fine, the systemd man pages mention it as a possible method.

Don't copy the files though, that isn't a good idea.

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