SLiM

OpenRC

Set SLiM as the default display manager:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">DISPLAYMANAGER="slim"</syntaxhighlight>

To start SLiM on boot, add xdm to the default runlevel:

To start SLiM now:

systemd

To start SLiM on boot:

To start SLiM now:

Per-user default session using bundled session files

The simplest way to set a default session for one user is to make a symbolic link from the session file to ~/.xsession

An alternative is to put session command in the ~/.xsession file:

/etc/X11/Sessions/awesome

You will only need to make sure the file is executable:

Per-user default session using the customized ~/.xsession file

Sometimes you need to customize the launcher script, e.g. to run other programs before starting the window manager or to start a window manager with a customized command. The method above does not allow such modifications, but it can be achieved by using default session script (instead of the one provided by window manager) and launching WM through the ~/.xsession file.

To run your sessions this way, make sure you have no global default session set (or set it to XSESSION="custom" in /etc/env.d/90xsession like described above). Then edit the ~/.xsession file located in the user's home directory, putting the window manager launcher at the end.

The file may look like this:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">#!/bin/sh

# Run urxvt daemon
urxvtd -q -o -f
# Set xserver parameters
xset s 0
xset dpms 0 0 1800
# Launch awesome
exec /usr/bin/awesome</syntaxhighlight>

Finally, remember to make sure the file is executable:

Per-user default session without using any default session files

If you do not like any defaults from /usr/share/slim/Xsession and /etc/X11/Sessions/Xsession, you can let your users set everything by themselves. It is generally not a good idea, but sometimes you may need it.

Start by editing /etc/slim.conf in the following way:

#login_cmd            exec /bin/bash -login /usr/share/slim/Xsession %session
login_cmd           exec /bin/bash -login ~/.xinitrc %session
...
#sessiondir           /etc/X11/Sessions
sessions            awesome,i3

In the sessions line you may put the names of window managers you are planning to use.

Then create and edit ~/.xinitrc file, which may look as below:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">#!/bin/sh
#
# Custom xinitrc file for Gentoo

DEFAULT_SESSION="awesome"

# Redirect errors to a file in user's home directory if we can
for errfile in "$HOME/.wm-errors" "${TMPDIR-/tmp}/wm-$USER" "/tmp/wm-$USER"
do
    if ( cp /dev/null "$errfile" 2> /dev/null )
    then
        chmod 600 "$errfile"
        exec > "$errfile" 2>&1
        break
    fi
done

# Define Xresources
userresources=$HOME/.Xresources

# Merge what is available
if [ -f "$userresources" ]; then
    xrdb -merge "$userresources"
fi

# Run urxvt daemon
urxvtd -q -o -f
# Set xserver parameters
xset s 0
xset dpms 0 0 1800

# Start WM
case $1 in 
awesome|i3)
        exec $1
        ;;
*)
        exec $DEFAULT_SESSION
        ;;
esac</syntaxhighlight>

Finally make sure the file is executable:

Theme selection

Theme selection is done by changing the following line:

current_theme    slim-gentoo-simple

You can easily find what themes are available on your system:

You can preview a theme by running the following command while Xorg is running:

NumLock state on login

The NumLock key can be turned on or off by default:

numlock    on

Autologin

Change <USER> in the example below to an appropriate user name:

default_user        <USER>
auto_login          yes

Unlock keyrings

The following section will describe how to make SLiM automatically unlock different keychains automatically when you log in.

auth	include		system-local-login
auth  optional	pam_gnome_keyring.so #keyring
account	include		system-local-login
session	include		system-local-login
session optional	pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start #keyring