Brandon Allbery wrote:
Because [X] was launched by LightDM, which is managing it by initially displaying a "greeter", then launching a session when someone logs in via the greeter.
Makes sense.
[No docs and silent errors in LightDM]
Personally I'd be removing it and installing gdm or kdm at that point. :/
Agreed. But I need to keep my current session stable (it contains too much useful state), while faffing around with experiments with new DMs. Can I keep the current LightDM (and the session I'm currently in) running, start GDM / KDM / whateverDM and keep on starting new experimental sessions in the second DM while keeping my original session (containing all the other work I'm doing) alive. Personally, I can't work with the "everything else has to be restarted every time you want to try something" workflow. (I won't really be happy until I can do kernel upgrades without having to log out (How's the Hurd getting on?) :-)
The other alternative is xinit/startx, which launches a server and then feeds a connection to that server to a script which attaches things to it to make a session.
Any pointers on how to get this going?