Ly - A Nerd's Display Manager
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
- Today I talk ly, a neat way to log into your Linux box.
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#ly #linux #thelinuxcast
I am sure you can do systemctl disable sddm, no need to uninstall anything
Yes. You can. I know this now. I also don't want to have two Display Managers on my system. #Bloat LOL
@@TheLinuxCast as a linux beginner i'd prefer to disable rather than uninstall xD
maybe only Uninstall after everything works just in case
soystemd
@@folksurvival sos un true gigachad
@@zerokun2655 Yeah, for me literally having a "backup" display manager helped me a lot when lightdm crashed horribly
back when I first started using Linux, there was no choice, you only had the terminal. At some point, you could install (via floppy disks or BBS) X11, and then play a bit after typing 'startx', but here's the catch: there was no GUI (it hadn't been developed yet), so all you had was a blank screen with a big crosshair: if you wanted to run any software, you had to open a terminal and manually run it, and that would popup in a 'window' (with no frames or anything) and when you were done with your job, you had to kill the task to get rid of the window. Rough times!
Arch Linux still starts like that
@@tacokoneko indeed. You have the option, though, to install Gnome/KDE and so on. Back then, they simply didn't exist...
damn, I saw someone mention they were building a "tty based workflow" on reddit and thought "people are crazy"
I remember those days! Ah, the nostalgia. The little 'X' in the middle of the screen for the mouse pointer, running extra terminals and specifying geometry to not cover the primary terminal... all great at the time but indeed rougher times to consider when looking back now. The miracle of modern WMs like WindowMaker and Enlightenment was astounding to me when I first installed them. Now my daily usage of XFCE feels so comfortable and using Xephyr(back in the day it was Xnest) is still so natural.
Which system did you use prior to Linux? I moved from the BSD(the original -- prior to FreeBSD; used minix for a little bit prior to that but mostly Unix, starting on SVR3).
@@GeraldOSteen awesome! I started with C64 (did you ever try BBS over UHF? good times), then tried most of the stuff that was available at the time, but DOS really clicked with me (I was unhappy when Win 3.0 was first introduced...and you had to launch it manually ofc). Ironically, I discovered BSD *after* Linux, and only run it in VM so I admit I haven't explored the full potential.
"What display manager do you use?"
"🤨..... startx....."
This is the way.
I love ly and have used it for years, and have never had any issues with it on X or Wayland. Also the animation toggle sets the PSX doom fire animation as the background which imo, makes it the coolest looking display manager by far! Also it's the perfect middle ground between wanting no display manager, but still wanting to be able to select a gui at login without reconfiguring xinitrc or anything.
Hey Matt, you could have simply "sudo systemctl disable sddm" first before uninstalling SDDM, then no errors would come up when you enable the next display manager.
How can ppl hate systemd?
@@jeremydoerksen5988 I personally like it.
@@methamphetamememcmeth3422 Me, too! It's wonderful!
@@jeremydoerksen5988 it goes against the KISS philosophy. I dont care about it (I do prefer openrc though), but that's why people dont like it
Those color ids are based on ANSI standards, which is what tty sessions use:
DEFAULT 0
BLACK 1
RED 2
GREEN 3
YELLOW 4
BLUE 5
MAGENTA 6
CYAN 7
WHITE 8
It's cool to see other linux nerds that don't need to blame others to feel they are better. Nice video!
Been using lightdm ever since, other display managers seemed to have issues with the dark mode. Glad I stumbled upon this video
The way X works, it should be possible to have X and an XTerm running before you log in to any user, and in that XTerm runs login(8), and that XTerm stays open after you've logged in as a window for prints in your login profile such as "You have mail."
There's a better and fast way if you're on Arch or an Arch based distro, install Yay, Paru, Trizen etc. and install my from the AUR,then type in the following command without parentheses, "systemctl disable (eg. sddm)-f" then "systemctl enable ly -f"
Additionally, I have not tested it. Be weary of compatibility with plymouth.
I use arch btw
I use arch btw.
More to the point you basically never want to install something outside of your package manager.
As of 2024 it's now in the official arch extra repo.
Back in 2014ish I really enjoyed ripping the display manager out of Lubuntu so I could log in from text mode. I haven't bothered doing that in a long time but it's so satisfying. Fancy display managers suck, the basic text login will always be my fave :P (But Ly looks pretty cool as well, I probably would've tried it back then if it existed)
Matt: *runs rm to delete the sddm syslink*
sudo systemctl disable sddm.service: Am I a joke to you?
Yeah, I don't use systemd enough to know all the tricks, tbh.
@@TheLinuxCast it's one of the 3 basic subcommands. enable, disable, and start
@@TheLinuxCast to be fair, disabling sddm in systemd is all you really needed to do - useful in case you just want to try lydm out, and want to have the option of easily switching back in case things don't work and you can't be bothered to fix them right now, or yu just end up not really liking it for whatever reason.
@@TricksterRad as I said below , I deleted it on purpose. Why would I need both? I dont like clutter.
@@TheLinuxCast I explained why you might want both around for a short period while making the switch.
I actually prefer the simplest option of logging in from the pure TTY prompt and automatically running xinit from my zsh/bash profile if the login came from tty #1, Using Ly is not that much better in comparison, unless you'd need the option of DE/WM selection, and it's one less program to worry about.
This is what I did with Arch for around 2 years.
DMs are bloat
@@leeroyjenkins0 so true, i started using my school notebook to code and compile rust
@@riceontopofbeans534 I once tried. Almost none of my X configuration was used.
and it's more secure too.
I love it. For DECADES ive wanted to login to my computer and have it look like Deus Ex unatco login screen. This is the closest ive seen
User: JCD
Password: bionicman
@@dermond exactly
@@dermond um... i mean no, what? Thats totaly not my credentials
Stumbled on your chanel and I must say that I love your way of explaining 👍
I've never heard of Ly. Definitely gonna check this out.
I've had a pretty bad issue with Ly a year ago. For some reason it messed up the environment variables in a way that kept CMake from setting LLVM_INSTALL_DIR properly. It was an absolutely terrible issue to troubleshoot as it took me a whole day of pure frustration and misery to connect the dots between some build issue and that display manager, but here we are. Use at your own risk.
What is the diff between login and display manager
I love awesomeWM
U can use nano jpico or ed it should be bundled with almost all distros
why build it from source? almost all repos have it.
@@atanki5682 Debian?
i'm still rocking the good old startx
All guys want to do these days is install Linux, eat hot chip, and ly!
I'm running greetd with tui-greetd. Super minimal, completely text based, feels kind badass ngl.
You got me at "I'm a nerd", also a Nerd here and proudly !
When Lester needs you to prep to use the phone for a heist
also sudo -e filename will copy copy the file to a temporary file in your $EDITOR, edit it as your user, and when you write the changes it will write them as sudo back to the original file
It was a VM, I have no clue what the editor variable is set as.
There’s also sudoedit, which I’m guessing is basically a wrapper for that, because it does the exact same thing.
@@code8986 sudo edit file and sudo -e file uses the same program and the program responds to it all the same, so yes you are practically correct
@@Ziggurat1 Got it, thanks for the confirmation.
Now in the first 30 seconds this guy addresses something that I've heard very few people talk about; the standards that is. Plasma = mostly SDDM, Gnome = Mostly GDM etc.
I am always hugely confused between all the packages and the way they have their own names for everything. It's very easy to get lost. So my question is, is there some kind of info-graphic or image, or text that shows us the "topology" of a Linux system including the filesystem and all their respective programs?
Probs not, but you could draw it and contribute
Probably out there somewhere there is something like this. For example, this is one on the Unix/Linux file system. community.clearlinux.org/t/linux-related-infographics-and-cheat-sheets/2010/6
I'm a fairly competent gnulinux user, and you do a very good job of explaining steps, and showing the errors. The only way to learn is to get errors and then figure out why that happened. When you're installing something, you can go sudo pacman -S -yy and you won't have to type y when it asks. You can use that on apt, yum etc. like sudo apt update && apt upgrade -yy and it'll be quicker. there's lots of little things like that to make it quicker.
either way, keep it up bud.
This comment is lying. -yy doesn't automatically say yes, but instead updates the repositories without upgrading your packages which is dangerous and may break you system.
Fairly competent but misinformation about pacman -Syy?
Holy shit!! I've been looking for something like Ly for over a year!!
Thank you!!!
8:40 I would recommend getting into the habit of using "sudoedit /etc/ly" (or "sudo -e /etc/ly" which does the same thing) rather than giving the editor superuser privileges. That way editor runs as the regular user, and only the part that needs superuser privileges (replacing the file) gets executed with elevated privileges.
It's not going to make much of a difference...
@@h7hj59fh3f I guess if you decide to not let people use vim with sudo??
I always forget that that exists. Idk why.
@@sethadkins546 its a safety thing. Sudo (editor) means that the program is running the file *directly*. If something happens during your edit like power cut, program crash, anything, you can mess up your file. Whereas sudo -e copies the file to a tmp folder, you edit the copied file, and when you quit, the tmp file replaces the privileged file. If anything happens to your editor or your computer while editing, your original file is safe
@@duckmeat4674 Ohhhhh ok
I hope a lot of people love you and take care of you. Much luck on your endeavors. Have a great day.
You can setup autologin on tty and auto startx to completely avoid having a display manager
The details depend on your init system, but I've done it on runit.
Huh?? How is it different per init?
@@0x7f2c By how much the process changes idk, but you have to edit some service files.
You can use the .profile from your login shell as well
I did it through my .zshrc file
@Glizzster aha
funny how it's so simple looking but also super cool
Hi Mat i think u should try to use the "mark the text then paste whit mouse wheel push to copy the text whit out putting it to clip board" method
You should, at least, have tried out the available animations. You're in a VM, but they are console mode so probably not too resource heavy. Also, your one complaint about the focus being on the second input at startup, the setting for that is seemingly in the config file. `default_input = 2`
I saw it, the animations I mean. Couldn't get it to work in the VM. So I cut that part out.
His complaint was that the input doesn't automatically change. It sounds like the config file doesn't have a setting to automatically change input either.
2:15 see the screenshot: omg this is the dm i always wanted!
Hey Linux Cast, would you mind doing a video on installing and playing with VMs like you do? I have dabbled with QEMU but it'd be really nice to learn about it from a pro like you.
And awesome video man as always, thank you!
STOP COLA DRINKS sir, JUST DRINK WATER, plis sir with love.
Thank you man, I haven’t see this before and It is amazing 🤩, for things like this It’s that I love Linux
I thought a display manager was the thing AFTER login. I haven't had anything like what you're describing for years. I've been logging into a TTY and from a screen session, manually starting an X session via startx which is set up to run openbox. (then if I want to lock the system, I switch back to the TTY, detach screen if not detached, ^D out and switch back to X and run slock)
Nope. That's a window manager.
Ah I thought window manager and display manager were synonyms, but it seems they're not. Wouldn't the generic term for Ly would be "login manager", though? (Since it doesn't manage a display, I think it's more akin to /bin/login)
@@lollllloro tbh, I don't know why they're called Display Managers, I just know they are. So for example, Gnome uses GDM or Gnome Display Manager. KDE uses SDDM, which as you might expect has Display Manager there at the end (I've not a clue what the SD stands for). LightDM is also a thing. And so on. I'm sure there's a reason why they are called that, I just don't know it.
@@lollllloro they are called display managers(to confuse people) but in reality they're just login managers lol
6:20 That looks like the nuclear way of doing it. First, I would not recommend to outright uninstall sddm right out of the bat. Something goes wrong, or you don't like it, you can fall back into something that works, you can uninstall it afterwards with everything in order. Log out of your session, go to a tty, login, sudo systemctl stop sddm (or whatever you are using) sudo systemctl disable sddm sudo systemctl enable ly.service and that should also start the service right up. If not, sudo systemctl start ly should do the trick. That way you don't have to reboot your whole computer.
Is their anyway to use Sleep with it? It seems like F3 to Sleep would be reasonable.
I'm not sure. I don't use sleep on my main desktop, so I haven't tried what it does when it comes back from sleep in a Desktop Environment.
Imagine not using vim to login :/
those color numbers look like the beginning of the rgb codes for black and red
Dude great guide. Love your work.
The need to uninstall sddm stumped me till I stumbled onto your vid.
Animated matrix background is def most leet heh =)
I'm seeing that and wondering if there's a way to put an ascii wallpaper on it xD
Why would it be called a display manager?? To me if you told me to go to the display manager, Id be looking to change my screen resolution etc.
@@bufordghoons9981 Agreed :)
My guess is that it’s call a display manager because it manages - enumerates, initializes, switches between, etc. - the display server(s) installed on the system (e.g. Xorg and Wayland).
Thank you very much Matt...I somehow messed up my lightdm display manager 😩 and was using startx to start my system. Slick-greeter, gtx would not work. I installed ly following your video and it works and looks great. I will continue to troubleshoot lightdm, but now am able to login. Thank you!
i daily drive ‘ly’, the ncurses feel is just unrivaled
I love your content... I's just always so good :D
Bro, I know ly because of you. I use Arcolinux with Bspwm, and SDDM by now, I tried to install and set ly, everything fine, the only thing is that Variety stopped to show wallpapers, it runs well but doesn't show any wallpaper
Does it use Xorg by default? No fiddling necessary? Gnome is pain in the butt to start x by default.
I never mess with DMs.
I just use DWM and log in from TTY
St and tabbed too?
One of reasons I use ly is for it's cooool DOOM style animation. I wonder you haven't say anything about it.
Add this to the config file:
animate = true
I saw it. Couldn't get it to work in the VM. So I cut that part out.
Can't wait when he tries greetd hahaha
Oh snap!
Finally, I can have a DM like a UI peasant while still actually using a tty like a Chad
I just got a severe allergy after one if the DMs (prolly lightDM, but don't quote me on that) refused to accept my password, though I was (and still am) 100% certain I typed it correctly. Like I purposefully made a simple password even I can't screw up no matter how high I am or how many kbd layouts I have and what they are - it should've been impossible to screw that up, yet that DM did. I ended up deleting it and I've been using startx (and more recently - sx) for login purposes. Works all the time, every time, like clockwork.
Oh yeah and in case if anyone wonders: after I uninstalled that DM, my tty accepted my credentials on the first try, so I'm fairly positive it was the DM's fault.
I followed the steps but after tryign to enable the service "systemctl enable ly.service" I get an error:
Synchronizing state of ly.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable ly
update-rc.d: error: ly Default-Start contains no runlevels, aborting.
I don't have any desktop enviroment and no sddm or lxdm installed. Any ideas how to make this works? Running Debian 12, just Terminal and SSH.
Ly has a nice animation background
Display manager sounds like it manages displays, and it's not correct because you described as it manages login after computer startup, so it's better to call it login screen. When I saw display manager I thought it's something that I can manage my displays - monitors and it's options like resolution refresh rate ect.
Can't really help what it's called. I didn't name it.
I recently tried on install Greetd on my Arch Sway install after SDDM broke when all i did was change the theme but Greetd just refused to work so then i tried Ly and it works absolutely perfectly out of the box.
great video brilliant summary
Really interesting vid, truly. But "I'm never gonna use that!"
(Still looking for the vid that tells me "OK, you want to do 'something else' or 'custom install' for Linux but I want /home on that drive over there, and /boot and /root wherever, but I want it all encrypted. From start-up. Is that doable? And if so, how?)
6:10 you don't need to uninstall another DM and remove that service file, just use systemctl and disable it
I don't like keeping something I don't use, so I remove it.
@@TheLinuxCast Still, you should have disabled it through systemctl before uninstalling it (sudo systemctl disable sddm && sudo pacman -Rns sddm sddm-kcm).
That would have avoid having an uninstalled program still linked symbolically to the display-manager.service file, preventing you to having to delete it manually like you did.
Anyway, great video as always :)
@@Antiz96 Yeah, I don't use systemd stuff often enough to remember that, but I have been corrected a few times. So I learned something new!
@@TheLinuxCast That makes sense, but it’s good to point out to viewers who don’t know (such as myself) which part is required (disabling it) and which part is recommended (removing it), especially when it’s something new that people may want to try out first before deciding to remove the previous option.
Hey, what Plasma Theme are you using? Thanks for the video
Nice! I always just used the terminal and startx, this is much better.
It reminds me of a time when I was using Ratpoison as my WM.
Thanks for the video, but I have an unrelated question. What is that loading screen after you login at 8:09
I’d love something like that to hide different prices of my desktop loading in at different speeds
That was the kde splash screen that came with the Arch Linux GUI (That project has been abandoned). I'm sure that it's online somewhere. Usually those splash screens can be installed in the kde setting panel.
"Another's famous back door..."
ty so much! loved this video :)
What, so "display manager" is basically a login screen? I recently installed Ubuntu Server and then XFCE. It starts in text login screen as usual, and when I need GUI, I type "startx" and then XFCE starts right from the desktop. If I use it like that, I don't need a display manager? Then why is it called "display manager". That sounds as if it is a vital part of GUI.
Display managers usually have a few other features that are attractive to the majority of users, apart from logging in
1. looks friendly
2. you can change the desktop environment/window manager easily
3. there are power/restart/hibernate buttons.
4. language, keyboard layout, and accessibility options.
Yeah they should be called login managers
Nice video. I had the plain tty, but probably will get this badboy now, thx
Emptty is criminally underrated
I searched sooo... much for this... i really dont want to deal with a lot of bloat as my main system is a raspberry pi and i had to us se big softwares like freecad in it...
So i was looking for somthing like this... really thanks. .. :)
If space is so much of a concern it might be better to just using xinit
What virtualization software are you using that lets you add the shortcuts at 4:24 ?
That's Virt Manager
my fav that i have been using for a year now!
Hi, what window manager are you using?
Why this if you can just startx?
wait you guys are using display managers???
Ly probably makes more sense if you're using a TWM and not something as large and bloated as plasma lol
awesome!, now I gotta find a window manager/DE like this so my total ultra-nerd metamorphosis will be complete!.... any suggestions?
Ly goes hard. for me less is more
why do we need display manager , when there is startx.
I still use getty/login and THEN start X. Only a WM (sawfish), no desktop/display manager
All Ly users are Nerds
All Nerds are cool
Therefore, Ly is cool
Then there's me, logging in straight from the TTY, with a script running upon login asking if I want to start X.
Same, but mine only runs on tty1 and doesn't ask me.
@@FolklorCaduco I need to figure out how to tell the difference between TTY and SSH connections, as it currently prompts upon login regardless.
great channel
wish you had shown the animation feature, its pretty cool
I couldn't get it to work in the VM. So I cut that portion out.
I disagree about vim being installed by default. Some people use nvim, emacs etc
Tbf, "vi" is probably installed by default even if "vim" is not. For what he was doing, he could have just used vi.
is there any way to change ly's font?
My first thought is on switching desktop/wm if have them installed at beginning of video
He answered my question here 8:06
Matt. I need some help on Ubuntu using external monitors through USB... please
Can you hide host name on ly ?
I got worried for him at 9:07 if he haven't installed vim how would he exit out of that...
Awesome video!
7:20 Has a gripe. 10:17 skips over solution to the gripe. # default_input = 2
I did end up finding it eventually, but not until after.
@@TheLinuxCast i just thought it was humerous. it wouldn't even be worth changing the setting just for the first login, would it? thanks for the content.
i just disabled the display manager so that if something goes wrong (usually does) i can go back.
i like it
what microphone youre using? you should list all of your gear in desc. or information tab
I use the Heil PR40. And that's a good idea, though I'll probably put it on the website.
@@TheLinuxCast distro-tube uses such mic
@@lolnjeoglondajmejejplejlis3365 He uses an ElectroVoice. I think Chris TItus uses the same mic I do, though
Matt had no problems with that cmd at 6:37 .. BUT If the sudo systemctl enable... FAILS... check if ly.service is present on usr/lib/systemd/system/ly.service. It wasnt on my case. So I copied and pasted from the git file the content of "ly/res/ly.service" and created a new file. Then everything worked. I am running Debian 12 :)
Hi, great video. Here no work: xf86openconsole: cannot open virtual console 2 (permission denied)
running make install on arch system feels so wrong. I'd do everything I can to have that as a package first
is there a way yo enable numlock?
Log in on login prompt, startx -> it starts Openbox. Done.