[CONFIGURATION] Login screen settings don't stick

[DoYouKubuntu]

Here's a re-working of a previous thread--I solved part of it, but can't make any progress on this.

REGARDLESS of which login screen I choose in System Settings--and by 'choose' I mean APPLY it, and when I leave that settings page, the one I chose is highlighted. But, as SOON as I come back to that settings page, NOTHING is highlighted.

In my config files, like /etc/sddm.conf and /etc/sddm.conf.d/kde_settings.conf, the CORRECT login screen is listed.

But it DOESN'T appear when I boot up. Instead, a random login screen that I never chose and have no idea where it's coming from appears--it's NOT shown in System Settings. I'm sure this is nothing more than a permissions problem or something similar, however I've tried making all sddm-related config files 777 and that didn't help. Any ideas?

[Snowhog]

Check that nothing in your /home/username directory is owned by root. Open a konsole. Type: ls -laR | grep root
If you get back just the prompt, then nothing is owned by root. But if a list is returned, those items are root owned and should not be.

[DoYouKubuntu]

The only thing owned by root is ..

As in:

$ ls -al
total 7860
drwxr-x--- 22 dyk dyk 4096 Mar 7 11:33 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 4 13:08 ..
-rw------- 1 dyk dyk 7224 Mar 6 16:58 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 dyk dyk 220 Feb 1 19:13 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 dyk dyk 3799 Feb 17 15:50 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 dyk dyk 3799 Feb 17 15:50 .bashrc~
-rw-r--r-- 1 dyk dyk 3799 Mar 6 15:24 .bashrc.orig
drwxrwxr-x 2 dyk dyk 4096 Apr 11 2021 bin
drwxr-xr-x 35 dyk dyk 4096 Mar 7 11:17 .cache
drwxr-xr-x 29 dyk dyk 4096 Mar 7 11:31 .config

...and so on.

[Snowhog]

That's good. At least we ruled out an ownership issue within your /home/dyk directory.

Are you using SDDM (Simply Desktop Display Manager)?

[DoYouKubuntu]

That's good. At least we ruled out an ownership issue within your /home/dyk directory.

Are you using SDDM (Simply Desktop Display Manager)?

Yes. Something I realized while trying to get this sorted out: on my login screen, there's a 'settings' icon, and clicking it yields a bunch of 'session' choices, like Cinnamon, Plasma (X11), Plasma (Wayland), Cinnamon (something else I can't think of right now), Ubuntu (something or other), and so on. The way I got my booting up, animated splash screen to work yesterday was by changing that 'session' choice to Plasma (Wayland). I *thought* maybe that would fix this issue, too, but it didn't. This really seems like a permission issue...

[Snowhog]

In a Topic I made yesterday (?), I opined on Plasma (Wayland). I didn't like it. Won't use it. Plasma (X11) is what I use and will continue to use. Switching 'session' choice doesn't just affect the Login Screen; it affects aspects of the Desktop Environment as well.

[claydoh]

Nothing in $HOME will effect the SDDM settings at all, those are all in /etc/ and /usr/share/


/etc/sddm.conf/etc/sddm.conf seems to be an empty, zero byte file, if one has changed to a custom theme and settings. This seems to create the etc/sddm.conf.d/kde_settings.conf file, and 'blanking' /etc/sddm.conf .
I checked this on 3 , yes three, different systems, Kubuntus 20.04 and 21.10, as well as Neon, just to verify . Odd

I wonder if having both config files present is confusing it?

And to confuse things even more, if you change the theme's wallpaper, that info is stored in /usr/share/sddm/themes/$THEME_NAME/theme.conf.user, with the chosen image copied to somewhere in that theme's folders

[DoYouKubuntu]

I've kept detailed notes on all things *nix for many years, and this whole topic of splash screens is in my notes. I've followed all my previous instructions to the letter, but am not getting anywhere. I know that from version to version, things change. Like, not that long ago, I didn't even know what SDDM was, or how its config files control various things!

I'm guessing that between 20.04 and 21.10 there's been an addition or change of config files--because all of this was working on 20.04 and everything before that.

I started out wanting to have both a username and password field on my login screen. Now I'd be happy simply seeing my LOGIN SCREEN!! What on earth is controlling it? Making it not display despite being shown in various SDDM config files?

On a brighter note, I've been tinkering with my bootup splash screen's settings, in $HOME, and have it doing assorted things I like, such as displaying the date and time the way I want. If anyone's interested, its config file is: ~/.local/share/plasma/look-and-feel/[bootup splash screen name]/contents/splash/Splash.qml, e.g., for the one I'm using, it's: ~/.local/share/plasma/look-and-feel/Animated_Butterly_flies/contents/splash/Splash.qml Lots of fun poking around to do in there!