SLiM fork – the Simple Login Manager resurrected

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22nd April 2023 - 29th September

I Have Aphasia

I am not able to maintain SLIM at the moment as I am rehabilitating from aphasia.


15th March 2023

Gentoo Linux now has ebuilds for V1.3.9 and V1.4.0, as well as a "9999" (bleeding edge) ebuild for SVN HEAD. They are marked "unstable" for now, to be stabilized in due course as per the Gentoo way.


4th March 2023

Progress is being made towards having a Fedora package. The old version had been removed from their repositories but is being reinstated while the V1.4.0 package is prepared.


4th February 2023

Devuan "daedalus" (testing) has now been updated with slim-fork V1.4.0


22nd January 2023

The Venom Linux team are clearly on the ball, as they've already picked up the new release!


21st January 2023

Version 1.4.0 has been released

In celebration of the first anniversary of the fork project, this release brings a new default look, as well as quite a few improvements under the skin. There are several bug fixes and some minor feature improvements.

See the project downloads page for the full release notes.


3rd January 2023

The Devuan project has now adopted slim-fork V1.3.9 as the upstream version in their daedalus (testing) suite.


2nd January 2023

A review on the project site says slim-fork has been adopted as upstream by Venom Linux. I hadn't previously come across that distro. It's a build-from-source one like Gentoo, but with the traditional Unix philosophy (small tools that do one job well) rather than the monolithic "one daemon to rule them all".


28th December 2022

I've been working with the Devuan developers to get their package for slim updated to use slim-fork. With much help from them, it's now the upstream in the ceres (unstable) suite.


18th November 2022

Version 1.3.9 has been released

This fixes a few more bugs, adds some enhancements, and generally tidies a few things up. Of note are an option to keep the user name if the password is typed wrong, and the ability to direct log messages to stderr (useful for some init schemes).

See the project downloads page for the full release notes.

SLiM is an acronym for Simple Login Manager. SLiM is lightweight and easy to configure, and requires minimal dependencies - none of the GNOME or KDE desktop environments or their corresponding toolkits. It thus contributes to a lightweight system for users who also like to use lightweight desktops such as IceWM, Xfce, Openbox, or Fluxbox.

The original project has not been maintained since 2013. This project was forked from the last release, V1.3.6, incorporating fixes to bring it up to date with developments in Linux. Initially I have concentrated on just making it work right, but in some cases that means I've added what some might consider features. If so, I try to make the enhancements configurable so as not to upset users who like the minimalism of what was there before.

Features

  • PNG and XFT support for alpha transparency and anti-aliased fonts
  • Support of external themes
  • Configurable runtime options: X server, login / shutdown / reboot commands
  • Single (GDM-like) or double (XDM-like) input control
  • Can load predefined users on startup
  • Configurable welcome / shutdown messages
  • Random theme selection

Default theme login screen

slimlock

Shortly before the original project died, the then maintainer incorporated a spin-off screen locking tool called "slimlock". I'm not sure whether anyone actually uses that ‐ it has a number of quirks that I would consider bugs. I don't consider it a high priority, being very much an after-thought and not the main application. However, I do plan to fix it and make it usable, especially where doing so allows me to remove cruft from the SLiM code.

Get SLiM

Download the latest release at https://sourceforge.net/projects/slim-fork/files/latest/download

There is also a PGP public key (Fingerprint=7062FC1D324169BF98D66982D1B4238ADD8B03FB) and signature files for each release in the downloads area.

Or visit the project at https://sourceforge.net/projects/slim-fork