LightDM is the default display manager for Edubuntu, Xubuntu and Mythbuntu since 11.10 release, for Lubuntu since 12.04 release, for Kubuntu beginning with 12.10 until 15.04 for Linux Mint[14] and Antergos.

LightDM starts the X servers, user sessions and greeter (login screen).

LXDM is the display manager of LXDE. But it is universal. I (Paiiou) think that it is an excellent manager for Xfce: no dependencies on GNOME or KDE, nice interface, very complete. Most distributions have a package to install. Regarding the configuration, check the presence of a file (or add) /usr/share/xsessions/06xfce4.desktop (the location may differ depending on the distributions), such as:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Xfce4
Comment=Use this session to run Xfce4 as your desktop environment
TryExec=/usr/bin/startxfce4
Exec=/usr/bin/startxfce4
Icon=/usr/local/share/pixmaps/xfce4_xicon1.png
Type=Application

Lines TryExec and Exec may also differ between distributions.

If you want to avoid Gnome or KDE dependencies and a more attractive interface than XDM, you can give SLiM a try. Read the SLiM manual for more information.

If you installed Xfce system-wide and you want to use the GNOME Display Manager (gdm) to start your Xfce session, you will have to create a .desktop file to teach gdm how to start the Xfce session. This is a sample desktop file, Xfce.desktop:

  [Desktop Entry]
  Encoding=UTF-8
  Name=Xfce4
  Comment=Use this session to run Xfce 4.4 as your desktop environment
  Exec=/usr/local/bin/startxfce4
  Icon=/usr/local/share/pixmaps/xfce4_xicon1.png
  Type=Application

It is usually enough to simply copy the example file to the Session directory used by gdm; this directory is usually located in /etc/dm/Sessions, /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions, /usr/share/xsessions, /usr/X11/share/gnome/xsessions or some other location, refer to the documentation of your system for details. You need to restart gdm after you created the file.

If you installed Xfce system-wide and you want to use the KDE Display Manager (kdm) to start your Xfce session, you will have to create a .desktop file to teach kdm how to start the Xfce session.

First you need to find where kdm searches for its .desktop files:

  locate kde.desktop

Common locations are /usr/share/apps/kdm/sessions or /usr/local/share/kdm/sessions. Once you found the kdm session directory, you need to create a new file Xfce.desktop with the following:

  [Desktop Entry]
  Encoding=UTF-8
  Type=XSession
  Exec=/usr/local/bin/startxfce4
  TryExec=/usr/local/bin/startxfce4
  Name=Xfce4
  Comment=The Xfce4 Desktop Environment

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