Skip to content

GDM - Gnome Desktop Manager

The GNOME DisplayManager (GDM) is a program that manages graphical display servers and handles graphical user logins.

More information:

https://help.gnome.org/admin/gdm/stable/

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GDM

let you set theming wallpaper and other options for the really bare GDM login screen.

GDM shows black screen with blinking white cursor

Section titled “GDM shows black screen with blinking white cursor”

After booting, GDM may present you with a black screen with a blinking white cursor in the top left. This may be caused by GDM starting up before the graphics drivers are fully initialized. One possible workaround is to start KMS early. Another possible workaround is to edit the systemd service and either set its type to “idle” or add a small delay:

[Service]
Type=idle

or

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 2

If a longer delay is required, increase the delay time.

to do so:

The easiest way to do this is to run:

Terminal window
sudo systemctl edit gdm.service

This opens the file /etc/systemd/system/unit.d/override.conf in your text editor (creating it if necessary) and automatically reloads the unit when you are done editing.