I wrote this howto because i was tired of gdm and kdm. I think they scrue up my font settings and therefore I use xdm as X display manager. By default xdm is boring but ith little time you can make xdm quite nice.

Instructions

This howto will take you throw the bacis in order to set up a personal xdm login screen.

1. Install xdm and make it your default X display manager

apt-get install xdm

2. Configure background picture.

You will need qiv to display a background picture on xdm.

apt-get install qiv

Then you shall edit your /ect/X11/xdm/Xsetup file to look something like this:

..
..
CONSOLEDEV=/dev/xconsole

if [ -r /path/to/picture/xxx.png -a -x /usr/bin/qiv ]; then
	/usr/bin/qiv -z /path/to/picture/xxx.png
else
	/usrX11R6/bin/xsetroot -solid "#CFB868"
fi

if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
..
..

You will also need to put the same five lines in the /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession file in order to.. do what ?!?!?!

..
..
# $XFree86: xc/programs/xdm/config/Xsession,v 1.3 2001/01/17 23:45:24 dawes Exp $
if [ -r /path/to/picture/xxx.png -a -x /usr/bin/qiv ]; then
	/usr/bin/qiv -z /path/to/pricture/xxx.png
else
	/usr/X11R6/bin/xsetroot -solid "#CFB868"
fi

# invoke global X session script
..
..

I have put my pictures in /etc/X11/xdm/pixmaps/ just for the ease of it.