this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Mix and match login managers and desktop environments (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 days ago by AliasVortex@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.world
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Hi, I think I've run out of keywords to hit Google with, so it's time to ask for help.

I'm running Fedora on my Framework 16, which is domain joined to my home lab Active Directory. Overall I'm pretty happy with KDE, but SDDM is proving to be rather bothersome (it's not a huge fan of my domain account, and constantly forces me to enter my creds in the other user free form, which prevents me from using my fingerprint sensor to login). For grins, I tried out the GDM display manager and was able to both pick my account from the list of users and use my fingerprint to log in. That said, I'm not a particularly huge fan of the GNOME look and feel.

So, I was wondering if it would be possible to use just the GDM login prompt, but have it feed into KDE desktop and if so what I'd need to tinker with to configure it.

(I feel like it should theoretically be possible, but it's not strictly a deal breaker- worst case the next Fedora update in April is supposed to be replacing SDDM with a new fork)

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago

Mix and match login managers and desktop environments

So, I was wondering if it would be possible to use just the GDM login prompt, but have it feed into KDE desktop and if so what I’d need to tinker with to configure it.

I imagine that it'd depend on the login manager.

I use emptty, which allows me to log in on a text console.

For that login manager, I:

Add a ~/.config/emptty-custom-sessions/sway-wrapped.desktop file:

Name=Wrapped Sway
Exec=/home/tal/bin/my-wrapped-sway.sh
Environment=wayland

And add ~/bin/my-wrapped-sway.sh:

#!/bin/bash

. ~/.bash_profile

export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland

exec dbus-run-session sway "$@"

I mark my-wrapped-sway.sh executable (chmod +x ~/bin/my-wrapped-sway.sh), and done.

searches

https://blog.boristerzic.com/posts/2023-09-17-build-your-own-desktop-environment/

Adding a New Custom Desktop Environment in Arch Linux

Your desktop environment is typically started right after your login to the system using your display manager (or login manager). In graphical display managers like gdm you can select one of several session types from a list. This is where we want to add a new entry for our labwc based desktop environment.

On Arch linux these sessions are stored in /usr/share/xsessions in separate .desktop files. A /usr/share/xsessions/labwc.desktop file could look like this:

[Desktop Entry]  
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=labwc
Comment=labwc
Exec=labwc
Type=Application

I'd probably give that a try.