Arch Linux

aidengariepy89

Member

Registered: 2023-06-18

Posts: 4

[FIXED] Having some issues with a Display Manager

I am currently having some issues with a display manager such as LightDM. I am using bspwm, polybar, and nitrogen for backgrounds. I would have to login from the terminal, and then use startx to boot into bspwm. Everything was working great other than a few minor things.
Next, I install LightDM for a display manager and LightDM-webkit2-greeter (although I tested a different greeter and I don't think this is the issue). I link my .xinitrc file as the .xsession and add lightdm to systemctl. The display manager seems to work perfectly fine, polybar, bspwm, and all that started up great, except the background did not load at all. I had to manually run "nitrogen --restore" to get the background to appear. Weirder still was an issue with polybar. I have a border radius in my polybar config, but when I load in with LightDM there are black pixels filling in the gaps where you should be able to see through to the background.

I tried a few different greeters, but the problem remained. I tried a different display manager, but the problem remained. I tried using Feh instead of Nitrogen, but no luck. I looked online, and it seemed some others had a similar issue, in which the problem was the display manager didn't have the permissions to access the pictures, so I slapped them into a images directory in /usr/share, but still no luck. My guess is that there is some conflicting setting or something with lxsesison that I am missing here, but I am quite confused. Any help is very appreciated. I am very excited to get started here in the Arch community!

Here's my .xinitrc / .xsession file, it's mostly the default config except at the bottom:

#!/bin/sh

userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

# merge in defaults and keymaps

if [ -f $sysresources ]; then







    xrdb -merge $sysresources

fi

if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
    xmodmap $sysmodmap
fi

if [ -f "$userresources" ]; then







    xrdb -merge "$userresources"

fi

if [ -f "$usermodmap" ]; then
    xmodmap "$usermodmap"
fi

# start some nice programs

if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ] ; then
 for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/?*.sh ; do
  [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
 done
 unset f
fi

setxkbmap us &
picom -b --fade-delta=3 &
lxsession &
nitrogen --restore &
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr &
exec bspwm

Let me know if I need to give any additional info, thanks!

Last edited by aidengariepy89 (2023-06-19 14:18:36)

jonno2002

Member

Registered: 2016-11-21

Posts: 922

Re: [FIXED] Having some issues with a Display Manager

how have you linked your .xinitrc to xsession ?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Displa … figuration

aidengariepy89

Member

Registered: 2023-06-18

Posts: 4

Re: [FIXED] Having some issues with a Display Manager

I have, yes. Everything else works fine and turns on, just not the background.

jonno2002

Member

Registered: 2016-11-21

Posts: 922

Re: [FIXED] Having some issues with a Display Manager

try putting

setxkbmap us &
picom -b --fade-delta=3 &
lxsession &
nitrogen --restore &
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr &

in your bspwmrc instead of in xinitrc

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 78,857

Re: [FIXED] Having some issues with a Display Manager

Please use [code][/code] tags. Edit your post in this regard.
Then don't fork setxkbmap, nitrogen or xsetroot (remove the trailing "&")

idk. about lxsession, but it seems to run a WM, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/LXDE#U … ow_manager
It might also restore your wallpaper or start a desktop process (icons on the desktop) in which case you either cannot set the wallpaper w/ nitrogen or have to set it after lxsession is done.
Brute force would be

…
(sleep 5; nitrogen --restore) &
…

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

aidengariepy89

Member

Registered: 2023-06-18

Posts: 4

Re: [FIXED] Having some issues with a Display Manager

try putting

setxkbmap us &
picom -b --fade-delta=3 &
lxsession &
nitrogen --restore &
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr &

in your bspwmrc instead of in xinitrc

This seemed to work! Thanks so much for the help!

aidengariepy89

Member

Registered: 2023-06-18

Posts: 4

Re: [FIXED] Having some issues with a Display Manager

Please use [code][/code] tags. Edit your post in this regard.

Thanks for the tip!