Disable Login screen in LightDM/XFCE

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Well, what do you know! It actually works for once.

Yay! \o/

So use this in ~/.profile (with the getty@tty1 autologin override in place):

Code: Select all

[ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ] && exec startx /usr/bin/startxfce4

[andoru]

Thank goodness! I was getting tired of constantly restarting the PC, haha.

One more question though: will I lose any security through doing this? (as in security breaches, or leaving my PC vulnerable to external attacks and the like, not about somebody with physical access to my PC being able to access data off my home folder, browser, etc, without needing to log in).

[Head_on_a_Stick]

will I lose any security through doing this?

Oh yes, definitely.

That's why I don't use this method myself

Also, I'm pretty sure that plain old `startx` should work, even for XFCE, so there may be something not quite right in your system.

[dasein]

One more question though: will I lose any security through doing this?

OMG.

Of course you will.

You only thought of this after three full pages??

Snap. HoaS beat me to it. Still, exceptionally facepalm worthy.

[andoru]

This method (no login manager) was suggested later in the thread, and I could not guess this method might leave this PC vulnerable to external attacks.
So then, what's the more secure alternative?

You only thought of this after three full pages?

No, read above.
No need to mock me

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Login with a password instead.

[andoru]

What does exactly autologin do to cause the OS to become vulnerable to external attacks then?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

(as in security breaches, or leaving my PC vulnerable to external attacks and the like, not about somebody with physical access to my PC being able to access data off my home folder, browser, etc, without needing to log in).

I missed this explanation, sorry.

I can see no reason why security would be compromised for non-local attackers but I may be wrong.

[andoru]

I missed this explanation, sorry.

No worries, that was my main concern, as to not leave my system vulnerable to external (or as you put it, non-local) attackers.

I can see no reason why security would be compromised for non-local attackers but I may be wrong.

Will leave this config as such until somebody lets us know of any vulnerabilities.

But now with this working, I started noticing that there are some jerky animations when there are transitions or fade in/outs in the compositor that weren't there previously. Anyone know what could cause that?
Also thanks HoaS for your help! You're been awesome

[Head_on_a_Stick]

my preferred terminal emulator (terminator) doesn't like it at all - only terminator windows lost their decoration

How strange, terminator works just fine in my (stretch-based) system with (console-based) autologin enabled:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=633964#p633964

Perhaps check the systemd journal or ~/.xsession-errors for clues?

EDIT: you already posted .xsession-errors, sorry

I started noticing that there are some jerky animations when there are transitions or fade in/outs in the compositor that weren't there previously. Anyone know what could cause that?

My bet would be on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

But seriously, if anything the desktop should be lighter without the display manager running, and with autologin set LightDM is quite literally doing nothing at all.

I have found the compositor in XFCE to be pretty poor and I usually turn it off and use compton instead, have you tried that?

Of course, it could be that there is still something not quite right in your system — as I mentioned, pure `startx` should start /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager with no further arguments needed but this is not the case for you.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

OT but there have been a few problems reported from upstream:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=221467

Perhaps some clues there?

EDIT: ignore my noise in that thread

[andoru]

my preferred terminal emulator (terminator) doesn't like it at all - only terminator windows lost their decoration

That's strange, it also works for me without any problems...

My bet would be on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Hahaha, nope!

I have found the compositor in XFCE to be pretty poor and I usually turn it off and use compton instead, have you tried that?

Yup, that's what I'm using.
It also happens on the XFCE loading screen (I've set it to the one with the grey background and where the logo fades in and out), and from what I know, that's way before compton is loaded.

Any ideas where I could look for diagnosis? I looked into the Xorg logs, but there doesn't seem to be anything suspicious. Then again all logs are from before I managed to get autologin to work, so I'm guessing when loading Xorg like this, it doesn't leave logs?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

so I'm guessing when loading Xorg like this, it doesn't leave logs?

If you're using sid then X is run rootless and the logs are kept under ~/.local/share/xorg/

[andoru]

Ah, why didn't I think of that!
Taking a look at those logs, still I get nothing suspicious, these are all the warnings/errors I get:

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[    35.039] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
[    35.385] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
[    35.385] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev
[    35.394] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa
[    35.394] (WW) VGA arbiter: cannot open kernel arbiter, no multi-card support

I'll try disabling compton and see if there's any improvement.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Just had a thought [1] — check the contents of ~/.xsessionrc and see if anything critical is started from there.

That file is parsed by display managers but not for a console-based login, ~/.profile is used for that instead.

[1]

[andoru]

Nope, that file doesn't exist under the home directory.

[Danielsan]

I resolved in this way: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 07#p623372

[andoru]

Thanks for the suggestion, but this is a problem with the login screen when booting, as opposed to the lockscreen after suspending the machine.

[andoru]

Tried without compton: still the same I'm afraid, jerky animations.

[Danielsan]

Thanks for the suggestion, but this is a problem with the login screen when booting, as opposed to the lockscreen after suspending the machine.

I got it, so you want disable the locking after the resume, I found this:

https://github.com/the-cavalry/light-locker/

After installing light-locker, it will auto start along your session and you will be able to lock your session with "light-locker-command -l".
This will redirect you to VT8 (assuming that your open session was on VT7 and is now kept safe by light-locker) and present LightDM's greeter for unlocking your session again.
On suspend/resume light-locker will lock the active session and redirect to the LightDM's greeter for unlocking the session again.
There is no support for gnome-settings-daemon in order to keep things slim, so you might have to add a custom keyboard-shortcut for this to work.
light-locker will automatically lock the session shortly after the X11 screen saver kicks in. The timeout can be set with --lock-after-screensaver. With xset the X11 screen saver can be adjusted.
Use --late-locking to avoid some of the negative effects of VT switching. This will lock the session on the deactivation of X11 screen saver instead of activation.
light-locker will automatically lock the session on suspend/resume. To disable this behaviour with --no-lock-on-suspend.
With --lock-on-lid light-locker will automatically lock the lid close.
With logind sessions can have an idle hint. This is used to perform some action after a timeout. Use --idle-hint to let light-locker set the idle hint, in case nothing else does.