XDM (display manager)

Last updated
XDM
Original author(s) Keith Packard
Developer(s) X.Org Foundation
Initial releaseOctober 1988;36 years ago (1988-10)
Stable release
1.1.14 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 3 December 2022;23 months ago (3 December 2022)
Repository
Written in C, C++
Type X display manager
License MIT License

The X Display Manager (XDM) is the default display manager for the X Window System. It is a bare-bones X display manager. It was introduced with X11 Release 3 in October 1988, to support the standalone X terminals that were just coming onto the market. It was written by Keith Packard.

Contents

Functions

XDM is used to boot an X.org based desktop environment. [2] It can control a display directly or indirectly in order to start an X session and supports remote login. [3] XDM is initialized on system startup. [4]

It can be edited through the use of a configuration file, modules, or scripts. [5] [6] The configuration file is usually found in /usr/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-config. [7]

History

XDM is one of the earliest display managers for Linux. [4] It was developed by Keith Packard after he joined the X Consortium due to his frustration using a text-based environment to try and configure X. [8]

XDM is available but unused on most systems because of its rudimentary nature. [9] Desktop environments released afterwards tended to include their own display manager, such as dtlogin on CDE. [3]

See also

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References

  1. "[ANNOUNCE] xdm 1.1.14". 3 December 2022. Archived from the original on 30 July 2023.
  2. Impson, Jeremy (2002-01-01). "VNC, Transparently". www.linuxjournal.com. Retrieved 2024-05-13.
  3. 1 2 Anderson, Robin; Johnston, Andy (2002). Unix Unleashed. Sams Publishing. ISBN   978-0-672-32251-8.
  4. 1 2 Edward, Robert (2024-03-18). "What Are Display Managers and How Do They Work?". Baeldung. Retrieved 2024-05-13.
  5. Quercia, Valerie; O'Reilly, Tim (1993). X Users Guide Motif R5: Motif Edition. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN   978-1-56592-015-6.
  6. Barkakati, Naba (2005-09-19). Red Hat Fedora Linux Secrets. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   978-0-471-77492-1.
  7. Levi, Bozidar (2002-05-29). UNIX Administration: A Comprehensive Sourcebook for Effective Systems & Network Management. CRC Press. ISBN   978-1-4200-0003-0.
  8. O'Neal, Miles (1996-07-10). "Taming The X Display Manager". www.rru.com. Retrieved 2024-05-13.
  9. Gerganov, Hiks (2024-03-18). "Linux Display Managers (LightDM, SLiM, XDM, GDM, SDDM, KDM, Ly): Install and Uninstall Guide". Baeldung. Retrieved 2024-05-13.

Further reading