Switching Greeters: KDM instead of GDM

If you are using Fedora, it is 100% sure, that you have already encountered with a greeter program: they are responsible for creating a graphical log-in screen.

When a Fedora Core computer is turned on, the default log-in manager to appear is GNOME’s GDM, as the folks at Fedora are having a crush on everything that is related to GNOME. Though it is pretty nice, and it can log you in to KDE (or any other installed Desktop Environment) as well, you might want to use KDE’s own greeter, KDM.

KDM has a lot of advantages, still it’s greatest hit is that the log-in themes at KDE-Look are designed for KDM, not GDM.

Setting your Fedora Core 5 computer to work with KDM is rather… interesting, but not difficult if you know what to do. It’s just a few steps, overall.

1. Add to following line to your /etc/sysconfig/desktop file:
   DISPLAYMANAGER=”KDM”
   additionally, remove all
   DISPLAYMANAGER=”GDM”
   lines, if there are any.
2. Save your file, and do log out.
3. When seeing the log-in screen, press Ctrl+Alt+F1.
   Warning: This will make you unable to get back to this guide, so I suggest you to print my post or put the remaining part down to a piece of paper.
4. Log in as root, and enter
   init 3
5. After doing so, enter
   init 5
   This should take you back to your KDM login screen.
6. If you can’t see a log-in screen, try pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7, Ctrl+Alt+F8, or reboot your computer.

The above steps were for making KDM the default greeter. For a convinient way of switching between KDM themes, you might want to install the KDM Theme Manager.

1. Download the rpm from KDE-Apps (exact path of rpm file) to your home folder
2. Install it by entering
   rpm -ivh ~/kdmtheme-1.1-FC3.i386.rpm
   into a terminal

After you have done so, the KDM Theme Manager is avalible from the KDE Control Center (kcontrol), under System Administration. Here, you can add, remove and switch between KDM themes.

You don’t need to remove the rpm to use GDM again, it is enough to rewrite the
DISPLAYMANAGER=”KDM”
line to
DISPLAYMANAGER=”GDM”.

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• KDM and Splash Screen on Gutsy

~ by bmb on 2006 July 14.