The new plasma login manager?

mcloaked · 2026-02-20 20:55:43

Does anyone know if with the update to plasma 6.6 and then disabling sddm, and enabling plm (plasmalogin) via systemctl, and then rebooting, if there is an option to change the keyboard layout from the presumed US default at the login screen, and can you then login using the selected keyboard layout to enter the user password to start a normal plasma wayland session? There is no full detail in the wiki about this and no sample plasmalogin.conf file to look at.

I would like to set up a config file with my chosen background image file, ahead of changing, as well as ensuring that the keyboard layout is set to UK (GB) so that once switched over the login to my normal session is seamless. Or do you login first and then change settings from the system settings -> login manager once logged in?

Has anyone tried this yet, and if so can you post if this works well. Thank you,

seth · 2026-02-20 21:16:07

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-lo … type=heads
Seems to ship w/ a kcm that you should™ be able to use before you actually even setting it as DM?

mcloaked · 2026-02-20 21:23:18

Thanks - so the settings are only visible once plm is enabled, and after rebooting - presumably if you simply stop sddm, and start plm, then the settings are still not visible, and plm does need to be enabled, rather than just started, so presume the only way to make the change is enabling plm and rebooting.

It may still be worth enabling, and also starting plm - and then logging out rather than rebooting perhaps to see if the new login screen is active at that point!

I guess I will have to try it out and see what happens!

Last edited by mcloaked (2026-02-20 21:24:12)

mcloaked · 2026-02-20 21:55:16

I did a bit of fiddling but in the end I did have to simply disable sddm, and did enable plasmalogin and reboot - the login greeter screen already recognised my keyboard layout with no need to change anything, but the greeter background was a default image. The default session was set to Gnome Wayland, so I had to set that at bottom left to Plasma Wayland, and it then logged in to my normal Plasma Desktop. It did seem a little quicker login than with sddm, but I will see if that is real after a few tests. So once logged in to the Plasma Desktop the System Settings did now have the login manager options from where I could simply set my chosen background image. So it does all work, and quite a simple change to execute.

Last edited by mcloaked (Yesterday 07:43:41)

Xabre · Yesterday 00:39:03

It's positioned a bit weird in systemsettings, unlike SDDM that was/is positioned in Colors and Themes area, new label is now Login Screen.
In any case, you can always open it via terminal and command kcmshell6 kcm_plasmalogin .

mcloaked · Yesterday 15:54:06

The new plasma login manager works fine - but one difference that I can't resolve is finding out how to get the PLM greeter screen to power off after a set time period, if left with no user logged in - this was a standard feature in sddm, but I can't find where that setting is for PLM. Can someone tell me how to set that please?

For a desktop computer left running but with no user logged in I have always liked the external monitor to be in screen save mode until someone moved the mouse and logs in - then if left logged in then turning off the screen after a specific period is one of the standard timeout settings under power management. I have always had sddm do that and turn off the screen after some period with no mouse action, with no users logged in also. I presume it is there in PLM too?

mcloaked · Yesterday 17:37:23

I have added comments to the upstream reports at

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513159

and https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513170

mcloaked · Yesterday 18:38:22

On a second laptop I also tested the new plasma login manager - but in that case the keyboard is set to US, and not UK, on the plasma login screen - so there are some keys that give the incorrect character when entering the login password. Does anyone know which config file or setting needs to be changed so that plasma login manager will recognise the correct keyboard layout? In the sddm greeter the keyboard is recognised correctly as UK - and the plasma wayland session has the correct keyboard layout. Does plasma login manager read the keyboard layout from X11 settings or somewhere else?

Edit: Checking the settings in localectl the output showed that the X11 layour was (unset) - so I ran sudo localectl set-x11-keymap gb

and then the X11 layout was set:

$ localectl
System Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
    VC Keymap: uk
   X11 Layout: gb

When I then switched from sddm to plasmalogin the new plasma login manager does now use the correct keyboard layout for password entry.
So the plasma login manager does rely on X11 settings - it had been hoped that plasma-login-manager would be fully Wayland but even if the plasma Wayland session is run from the new login manager, and all programs are run in Wayland mode, the X11 system is still needed, and it is not independent of X11.

The key remaining issue for me is that the new plasma login manager when running but without any users logged in does not turn off the screen after a timeout period.

Last edited by mcloaked (Yesterday 20:04:05)

seth · Yesterday 20:03:15

Pretty much every wayland compositor uses the xkb data and reads /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf - that doesn't mean any X11 library or protocol is used.

mcloaked · Yesterday 20:06:35

Thanks, Seth. That is OK - and I seem not to have any x11 processes running - xlsclients output is empty. Hopefully the new login manager itself is not using x11 aside from getting some key config parameters such as the keyboard layout.

Warper · Yesterday 21:33:52

You can configure the background image and apply the settings from plasma (keyboard layout, theme, etc) on PLM from the System Settings - Login Screen. In the upper right corner you have Apply Plasma Settings, that's supposed to do the trick.

Regarding your issue with not going idle, maybe it has something to do with the power management. My lockscreen does idle my screen after the required time.

I hasn't touched much the PLM config, I'm having other issues.

Warper

Last edited by Warper (Today 00:43:55)

mcloaked · Yesterday 22:00:46

The screen, if you are logged in to the plasma Wayland desktop, does turn off at the set time as per the system settings -> Power management settings (as it did with sddm). It is the plasma login greeter itself that doesn't seem to have any screen timeout when nobody is logged in. The previous sddm does turn off the screen after some period when no users are logged in. So I don't know if this is not yet coded in the new login greeter yet, or if it will be brought in later.

All the other features that I wanted do work - the user list, user avatars, correct keyboard layout, for password entry, and greeter background are now all working fine, and all users can log in from the new greeter.

There is the new file /etc/plasmalogin.conf that is created when I changed the background image. However there seems to be no default file /usr/lib/plasma-login/defaults.conf at all - which may have been designed to contain a set of default settings. I can't find any information about power management for the screen in the greeter itself.

Last edited by mcloaked (Yesterday 22:03:18)

Warper · Today 02:00:41

You made me turn off my computer just to test the greeter, and no, my PC does not turn off the screen when idle for the amount of time specified in the power management configuration when no one's logged in.

I was trying to search for more info and found that full power management from the greeter is part of the wish list for PLM, so, I don't think you can correct that, for now. Unless there's a way powerdevil can handle that without logging in.

I suppose PLM is still in heavy development and hope more features are added soon, 'cause I like the smoothness of the lock screen and the greeter, but it's clear it's not a direct fork of SDDM, otherwise, everything should work as expected.

Sorry couldn't help.

Warper

mcloaked · Today 08:01:49

I guess that logically the setting for power management can't link to the settings for a user when logged in to the plasma desktop, and must be set system-wide - so any setting for the greeter itself to turn off the screen when no users are logged in must be coded for PLM independently and be a setting that could be chosen for timeout from the System-settings -> Login Screen, where currently you can set the background and a limited number of other options, but not the screen turn of timeout for the greeter itself.

As you say perhaps this is still a wish list item, and not yet available - for laptops perhaps it is less critical but for a desktop with multi user operation for me having this functionality is a deal breaker and for such machines I will need to stick with sddm until this is part of PLM.

stu · Today 11:02:55

Im not sure how to really interpret the "What we want" list from https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-lo … at-we-want:

    Great out-of-box experience in multi-monitor and high DPI and HDR
    Keyboard layout switching
    Virtual keyboards
    Easy Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese (CJK) input
    Screen readers for blind people (which then means volume control)
    Remote (VNC/RDP) support from startup
    Deeper Plasma integration including:
        Display and keyboard brightness control
        Full power management
        Pairing trusted bluetooth devices
        Login to known Wi-Fi for remote LDAP

To me it seems those are mostly things yet to be implemented, can't really find where e.g. keyboard switching or power management integration would be implemented in the code.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-02-20 20:55:43

The new plasma login manager?

#2 2026-02-20 21:16:07

Re: The new plasma login manager?

#3 2026-02-20 21:23:18

Re: The new plasma login manager?

#4 2026-02-20 21:55:16

Re: The new plasma login manager?

#5 Yesterday 00:39:03

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#6 Yesterday 15:54:06

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#7 Yesterday 17:37:23

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#8 Yesterday 18:38:22

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#9 Yesterday 20:03:15

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#10 Yesterday 20:06:35

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#11 Yesterday 21:33:52

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#12 Yesterday 22:00:46

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#14 Today 08:01:49

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