How To Install lightdm-autologin-greeter on Ubuntu 20.04
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install lightdm-autologin-greeter on Ubuntu 20.04.
What is lightdm-autologin-greeter
lightdm-autologin-greeter is:
Minimal autologin greeter for LightDM that has the same auto-login behaviour as nodm, but being based on LightDM it stays on top of modern display manager requirements.
The difference between LightDM’s built-in auto-login and this greeter, are the behaviour in case of 0-seconds autologin delay: when LightDM autologs in with no delay, upon logout it will show the login window again. The intent is that, if the default user logged out, they probably intend to log in again as a different user.
When managing a kiosk-like setups, once the X session quits, the desired behaviour is to just start it again.
LightDM with an auto-login timeout of 1 or more seconds would work as needed, but one sees the login dialog window appear and disappear on screen at each system startup. While it is functional, on a kiosk setup this is aesthetically unprofessional.
With this greeter, the X session starts right away, and is restarted if it quits, without any flicker of a login dialog.
If one is not setting up a kiosk-like setup, it’s very likely that the default auto-login behaviour of LightDM is the way to go, and that this greeter is not needed.
There are three methods to install lightdm-autologin-greeter on Ubuntu 20.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install lightdm-autologin-greeter Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install lightdm-autologin-greeter using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install lightdm-autologin-greeter
Install lightdm-autologin-greeter Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install lightdm-autologin-greeter using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install lightdm-autologin-greeter
Install lightdm-autologin-greeter Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install lightdm-autologin-greeter using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install lightdm-autologin-greeter
How To Uninstall lightdm-autologin-greeter on Ubuntu 20.04
To uninstall only the lightdm-autologin-greeter package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove lightdm-autologin-greeter
Uninstall lightdm-autologin-greeter And Its Dependencies
To uninstall lightdm-autologin-greeter and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 20.04, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove lightdm-autologin-greeter
Remove lightdm-autologin-greeter Configurations and Data
To remove lightdm-autologin-greeter configuration and data from Ubuntu 20.04 we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge lightdm-autologin-greeter
Remove lightdm-autologin-greeter configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove lightdm-autologin-greeter configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge lightdm-autologin-greeter
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install lightdm-autologin-greeter package on Ubuntu 20.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.
