Entrance login manager

After a good amount of work, I was able to make a package with Entrance, the login-manager of enlightenment

This project is not much active, but I have used the fork of obsidian-studios and I was able to make it working, now, let's talk about the interesting part:

  • It allows to have a login-manager with sysvinit (no systemD), lightdm doesn't allows that
  • Switching from Lightdm to Entrance: 13 MB of RAM saved
  • Switching from SystemD to SysVinit: 37 MB of RAM saved (so only entrance works in sysvinit)

The ram saving is a generous option to consider

Note that Entrance can be not-fully working, but you are more than welcome to investigate any issues :slight_smile:

TIP: run "apug && apir e16-data" in order to make sure that you have a recent change needed

After to install it, don’t forget to:

dpkg-reconfigure entrance

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OK, but how do I enable "entrance" on the systemd Debian Buster system we have? :thinking:
For now I still autmatically get "lightdm"

dpkg-reconfigure entrance

You should then select it instead of lightdm

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OK.... no joy. :smile_cat:
On my machine "entrance" didn't get installed using "apug && apif e16 e16-data" .... I had to install it with "api entrance".

OK, started using.
Remarks:

  • It's a bit daft that the first entry for desktop choice is Cairo-dock (gnome) which definitely will not start a desktop.... It should IMO use the last one used before or default e16.
  • The little images aren't clear which user is selected.
  • If I set the "virtual_keyboard" boolean to 1 , nothing happens. So we'll need to either create an icon for it or set it as default. .... Prefer the first option.
  • The "gears" icon bottom right don't do anything.

In general I'd say it looks promising though. :+1:

yep, the update is only needed for e16 in order to be correctly run from entrance

don't worry, its remembered, but yeah the default option should be not this one, in fact it should not even appear (thats a future thing to remember / fix)

theme issue, that's a major work to do with it, in fact I plan to use the same theme as Elive 2.0 Topaz, like:

same, Create settings UI, enable disabled settings button · Issue #23 · Obsidian-StudiosInc/entrance · GitHub

No, it's not.
At least not on my machine. It keeps setting to Cairo-dock.

Because of that I don't really dare to try enabling autologin .... which would probably leave me jumping through hoops to get to the right DE.

Was that the one I always tried to chase the "shutdown" icon and catch it before it got to it's intended place?? :w00t:

i verified it, but i think that requires a correct "logout" from e16 in order to be remembered

that is a good thing to betatest and report the issue if happens :smiley:

:rofl2: probably
but yeah of course this can be improved (or it can be funny to leave it as-is? lol)

Ahh, but I am on E23. That might be the issue. :thinking:

Nope

It doesn't remember e16 either.
On top the entry "default Xsession" doesn't work either. :slightly_frowning_face:

I liked that. It was a game of sorts. :happybounce:

Well if I do that:
How will I be able to disable autologin from a TTY ?
Evidently I'll be stuck in a loop. :scream_cat:

  • Never mind I can always run "dpkg-reconfigure entrance" from TTY1 I just realized.

yes, you can also use virtualbox "snapshot" states (save snapshot, test, revert) which makes things easier and no need to reboot your own computer, I have also set an ssh so i can always ssh to the vbox machine too

there's a conf file for entrance in /etc which I assume you already seen, it should be used for autologin, so then you can enable / disable it from there

and so, bugs should be reported to their github project :slight_smile:

Does this mean that "enabling autologin" through "preferences", "users configuration|" does not work any more?
shot-2020-02-03_18-31-01

this tool only supports lightdm at the moment (yes it can be easily improved to have entrance compatibility too)

but at the moment the only way to configure entrance is from editing /etc/entrance/* files

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Alright did all that and set the boolean for autologin to 1.
Works fine and logs me straight into E23 (I set Enlightenment).

  • Strangely, then I'm not able to "reboot" or "shutdown" from the menu. Those options are greyed out now.
  • Logging out into "entrance" now chooses Enlightenment when I click on the user.

Disabling autologin makes the shutdown menu usable again and now ..........
Enlightenment or E16 is pre-selected when I click on the user in entrance. :thinking:

Running another (new) user has the issue again that the previous session is not remembered.
The first user still has it's choice remembered, though.

Edit

Autologin enabled for the new user makes "entrance" remember the settings for that new user (and keeps the remembered settings for the old user too) even after disabling autologin again. :thinking:

i noticed that too, seems like the user loses some privileges :thinking: when using entrance, e16 is unable to reboot too and only exits from desktop

I assume this should be reported too, entrance is using the same PAM and SYSTEMD configurations as lightdm so they should not be the issue IMHO

i did not tried autologin yet, but i can tell you my user is default set to e16 by default and before was "cairo-dock" the default one, i don't know what changed in some step (thats why i said it should remember it)

I just created a report, you can comment on it or add yourself as a watcher: Remember session issues · Issue #43 · Obsidian-StudiosInc/entrance · GitHub

This only if autologin was used after a fresh boot. Disabling it and rebooting, subsequently logging in again through "entrance" gives me the shutdown|hibernate|reboot|suspend options again.
By itself that's not a big deal but it is strange behaviour. :thinking:

Looks like the script is making different calls there.

It happens with gdm too oftentimes. Even if you click on shutdown it just logs out (and it's pretty annoying). Funny fact is that i did not lose any privileges installing entrance. I can still shutdown, reboot etcetera normally.

For me it is not. Cairo dock is always preselected

Entrance is as cool as enelightenent itself, so i think it's good. Just need to fix that ugly icon thing and it's going to be fine.I honestly feel some sort of slow down since when i installed it (i have no idea why, maybe it's just due to me also going back to e16 along with the installation I don't like e23, i'm sorry.) . I nicely notice that the ram consumption with e16 and two tabs on palemoon is just 580 MB of ram (usually 640). This means that disabling cairo dock and with few other attentions this Os could still run nicely (kinda) on a 512 mb pentium 4 based machine (i'm using a pentium HT rn).

My favorite login page ever made is the one from windows XP

Than you have not activated "autologin" using your username and prefered DE in "/etc/entrance/entrance.conf".

  • Once you've done that and rebooted you'll have the previous session remembered and have the shutdown'reboot options greyed out.
  • After disabling autologin again and rebooting, everything will be back as it was albeit that the now the previous choice will be remembered for that user.

mmm i set autologin boolean value to one and i got 1€ coin skinned penguins as user icons instead of autologin :joy: still pre selecting cairo dock

In the next lines after the boolean you have to enter the username and wanted DE. (E16 or Enlightenment)

In my case user "triade" and DE is "Enlightenment"

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