The display manager is a bit of code that provides the GUI login screen for your Linux desktop. After you log in to a GUI desktop, the display manager turns control over to the window manager. … Any of the display managers can be used for your login screen regardless of which desktop you are using.

What does display manager do?

Display managers provide a graphical login prompt. A display manager, or login manager, is a graphical interface screen that is displayed at the end of the boot process in place of the default shell. There are various types of display managers, just as there are various types of window and desktop managers.

Which display manager is best for Linux?

Perhaps the most popular and certainly the most versatile display manager is LightDM. Having supplanted older display managers in popular distros, it is customizable and feature-packed. LightDM is also lightweight, and supports X.Org and Mir.