Eliminate Your Display Manager With Startx

Display managers look cool, I get it but if all you want to do is login to you're X based linux system you really don't need them in fact you can start everything up with a single command called xinit or our case the wrapper script called startx.

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==========Time Stamps==========
0:00 Introduction
0:40 What Is Xinit
1:09 Startx
1:36 Creating Xinitrc
3:30 Exec Environment
4:53 Starting The XServer
5:25 Automating The Process
6:53 Running Multiple Enviroments
7:33 Issue With A Display Manager
8:06 Closing Thoughts
8:17 Outro

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All my art has was created by Supercozman

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[alenygam]

I used start x, then moved to the ly display manager. It is a terminal based display manager, and it's been working really well for me!

[oniondesu]

I jumped into arch as an absolute linux noob and couldn't get display managers to work for some stupid reason that I can't remember now. Been using startx purely because it is easier.

[glowowl]

Another fun thing to play with: When using dwm you may want to quickly restart dwm after building a new version without having to close you X applications. This can be done by not using exec, but running dwm normally in a while loop inside xinit. That way your X session (and applications) keep going even when killing dwm. To kill the x session instead, you can still kill xinit which will reap all the child processes.

[apathydriven]

Man, you're my savior! Switched from lightdm to xinitrc and loving it. Having the control of what is going is supreme. Thank you :)

[yjk_ch]

I also couldn't fully understand why it is called "Display Manager", but I guess it is just because it is used to create a X Display instance(= X server instance). Login Manager is certainly better name though, since the only UI visible to user is the login screen.

[MdSahil]

been using startx from the begining.
Anything else is bloat xD.

[ultrahalf]

Adding a ASCII art into /etc/issues for extra bling.

[wisnoskij]

This becomes even more relevant with SElinux distros. It was a challenge getting a DM working on fedora.

[regather]

Totally agree. I have a delayed startx in my bashprofile, so I can abort it if for some reason I don't want to launch X.

[MoreChannelNoise]

I recently installed a Distro that came with SDDM to handle startup, it worked fine for a while then after a system upgrade would not startup BSPWM so I uninstalled it and went back to the startx method, worked fine.

[jim-tipz]

Hey I installed arch and rebooted the new iso got to the login screen but there are no options for loving on as in user or text box

[mario]

I tried switching to lightdm on my laptop with propietary nvidia drivers. Unfortunately if I do that xrandr doesn't detect my nvidia card and using an xorg.conf file also didn't work so I am just sticking to startx for now

[xA]

I do not want any graphical user interface until I explicitly summon it. Discourages casual snooping by the cats. ;-)

[CaptainApathetic]

I started using sway and it doesn't actually work well with DMs, I just have to type in "sway" in the ttl on login and boom I'm in. I have xinitrc set to start i3wm if a program has issues on Wayland but have tbsm (cli display manager that can be run in a tty user session) in case whatever reason I need/want to use another desktop environment/wm

[alexpan]

Thank you. I didn't know I don't need a DM ;)

[oalfodr]

Is dunst necessary in your xinitrx? My system triggers it on its own when needed.

[sourcedecay]

Startx is how we used to do it in the slack 3.0 days

[oalfodr]

I like using ly display manager. It is tui login manager that can also run your xinitrc but remembers last used user and environment. That way I only need to enter my password

[colegiocaraludme]

Very nice video. I think that this method is very good when you wants to login automatically no? There is a way to allow login through password only with startx? Or you need to install a graphical login manager to achieve this? (Sorry for my English). Thanks

[BS-ggyd]

could you do a vid on bubblewrap or any sandbox application?