SLiM
SLiM is an acronym for Simple Login Manager. Lightweight and easily configurable, SLiM requires minimal dependencies, and none from the GNOME or KDE desktop environments. It therefore contributes towards a lightweight system for users that also like to use lightweight desktops such as Xfce, Openbox, and Fluxbox.
Configuration
SLiM can automatically detect installed desktop environments and window managers through the use of sessiondir /usr/share/xsessions/ in /etc/slim.conf. Those upgrading from a version before 1.3.6-2 must amend /etc/slim.conf and xinitrc, accordingly. See below.
Enabling SLiM
Enable the SLiM service slim.service. This assumes a previously enabled display manager was disabled first. Otherwise, change the default target.
Environments
F1 key.To configure SLiM 1.3.6-2 (or later) to load an environment, edit both /etc/slim.conf and ~/.xinitrc.
First, edit /etc/slim.conf:
If you only use a single environment, you can hash out sessiondir /usr/share/xsessions/. This will disable automatic detection of installed environments:
# Set directory that contains the xsessions. # slim reads xsession from this directory, and be able to select. # sessiondir /usr/share/xsessions/
If you wish to automatically detect installed desktop environments, leave the line un-commented.
Second, edit xinitrc:
Set default username
SLiM can be configured to automatically set a desired username, which will therefore already be completed. The password field will also already be focused by default. Change the following line in /etc/slim.conf:
# default_user simone
Uncomment this line, and change "simone" to the username of choice:
default_user your username
Enable Autologin
Edit /etc/slim.conf to uncomment the command and replace no with yes:
auto_login yes
Theming
Install the package. The packages contains several different themes (slimthemes.png). Look in the directory of to see the themes available. Enter the theme name on the line in /etc/slim.conf:
#current_theme default current_theme archlinux-simplyblack
You can preview a theme while Xorg is running with:
$ slim -p /usr/share/slim/themes/<theme name>
To close, type "exit" in the Login line and press Enter.
Additional theme packages can be found in the AUR. See the theme documentation for how to customize your theme or make your own. SLiM does not support alternative theme directories, so it is recommended to create a package for your custom theme so that pacman is aware of it.
Custom background
SLiM is hard-coded to load or (in that order) from your theme directory. Simply overwrite the appropriate file
# cp /path/to/new_background.jpg /usr/share/slim/themes/<theme_name>/background.jpg
Dual screen setup
You can customize the slim theme in to turn these percents values. The box itself is 450 pixels by 250 pixels:
input_panel_x 50% input_panel_y 50%
into pixels values:
# These settings set the "archlinux-simplyblack" panel in the center of a 1440x900 screen input_panel_x 495 input_panel_y 325
# These settings set the "archlinux-retro" panel in the center of a 1680x1050 screen input_panel_x 615 input_panel_y 400
If your theme has a background picture, you should use the background_style setting (stretch, tile, center or color) to get it correctly displayed.
Tips and tricks
Changing the cursor
After installing, edit /etc/slim.conf and uncomment the line:
cursor left_ptr
This will give you a normal arrow instead. This setting is forwarded to . You can look up the possible cursor names or in /usr/share/icons/<your-cursor-theme>/cursors/.
To change the cursor theme being used at the login screen, see Cursor themes#XDG specification.
Match SLiM and Desktop Wallpaper
To share a wallpaper between SLiM and your desktop, rename the used theme background, then create a link from your desktop wallpaper file to the default SLiM theme:
# mv /usr/share/slim/themes/default/background.jpg{,.bck}
# ln -s /path/to/mywallpaper.jpg /usr/share/slim/themes/default/background.jpg
Shutdown, reboot, suspend, exit, launch terminal from SLiM
You may shutdown, reboot, suspend, exit or even launch a terminal from the SLiM login screen. To do so, use the values in the username field, and the root password in the password field:
- To launch a terminal, enter console as the username (defaults to xterm which must be installed separately... edit
/etc/slim.confto change terminal preference) - For shutdown, enter halt as the username
- For reboot, enter reboot as the username
- To exit to bash, enter exit as the username
- For suspend, enter suspend as the username. Suspend is disabled by default, edit
/etc/slim.confas root to uncomment the line and, if necessary, modify the suspend command itself (by e.g. changing/usr/sbin/suspendto ).
Power-off error with Splashy
If you use Splashy and SLiM, sometimes you cannot power-off or reboot from menu in GNOME, Xfce, LXDE or others. Check your /etc/slim.conf and ; set the same as .
Power-off tray icon fails
If your power off tray icon fails, it could be due to not having root privileges. To start a tray icon with root privileges, be sure to have SLiM start the program. Edit /etc/slim.conf as follows:
sessionstart_cmd /path/to/tray/icon/program &
Login information with SLiM
By default, SLiM fails to log logins to utmp and wtmp which causes who, last, etc. to misreport login information. To fix this edit your as follows:
sessionstart_cmd /usr/bin/sessreg -a -l $DISPLAY %user sessionstop_cmd /usr/bin/sessreg -d -l $DISPLAY %user
Custom SLiM Login Commands
You can also use the sessionstart_cmd/sessionstop_cmd in /etc/slim.conf to log specific infomation, such as the session, user, or theme used by slim:
sessionstop_cmd /usr/bin/logger -i -t ASKAPACHE "(sessionstop_cmd: u:%user s:%session t:%theme)" sessionstart_cmd /usr/bin/logger -i -t ASKAPACHE "(sessionstart_cmd: u:%user s:%session t:%theme)"
Or if you want to play a song when slim loads (and you have the beep program installed)
sessionstart_cmd /usr/bin/beep -f 659 -l 460 -n -f 784 -l 340 -n -f 659 -l 230 -n -f 659 -l 110
GNOME Keyring
See GNOME/Keyring#Using the keyring to use GNOME Keyring in a custom session.
Setting DPI with SLiM
The Xorg server generally picks up the DPI but if it does not you can specify it to SLiM. If you set the DPI with the argument in /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc it will not work with SLiM. To fix this change your from:
xserver_arguments -nolisten tcp vt07
to
xserver_arguments -nolisten tcp vt07 -dpi 96
Use a random theme
Use the variable as a comma separated list to specify a set from which to choose. Selection is random.
Move the whole session to another VT
If tty terminals 3-6 are not used and commented out (You may use screen and therefore only need one terminal), change /etc/slim.conf to move the X server:
xserver_arguments -nolisten tcp vt07
Simply change the vt07 to for example vt03 as no agetty is started there.
Automatically mount your encrypted /home on login
To automatically mount an encrypted partition on user login with SLiM, configure pam_mount as follows:
Change Keyboard Layout
Edit , find the following section, add the two bolded lines, and replace dvorak with your preferred keymap:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "evdev keyboard catchall"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "evdev"
# Keyboard layouts
Option "XkbLayout" "dvorak"
EndSection
Screen Lock
Slim includes slimlock, a screen lock feature. To use it, just run slimlock.
Slimlock reads some configuration from /etc/slim.conf and its own configuration file /etc/slimlock.conf.
To prevent VT switching whilst locked, set tty_lock to 1 in . This also requires that that you have write access to and that slimlock has the capability. One way to achieve this is set slimlock to suid root:
chmod +4000 slimlock chown root: slimlock
An alternative is to setcap and permit your uid to write to .
sudo setcap cap_sys_tty_config+ep /usr/bin/slimlock sudo chmod o+rw /dev/console
You can use to lock the screen automatically:
xss-lock -- /usr/bin/slimlock &
Known issues
Shutdown or Reboot Stalled
There is a bug or known issue with the combination of SLiM, Xfce and systemd that does not let the system to properly shutdown and systemd waits for the SLiM service to end, but eventually is terminated.
To accelerate the shutdown process these lines might help when editing slim.service:
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/slim -nodaemon
Restart=on-failure
TimeoutStopSec=5s
IgnoreSIGPIPE=no
ExecStop=/bin/kill -TERM -${MAINPID}
See .
Identification problem
If your password contains non-ASCII characters (é, è, ç, à, etc.) and the locale of your system is in Unicode ( for example), you will not be able to log in to your session with the package from the official repository (bugs found on Debian, bug#532060 and on NixOS, bug#29802.
A fixed version available on AUR brings Unicode support and solves this problem: .
/etc/slim.conf or themes, for example "Reboot system..." for reboot_msg.