Running SDDM on Wayland

#

Introduction

#

By default, on OpenSUSE, SDDM runs on Xorg and as root. As Xorg is not the safest option anymore today, it is better to run SDDM on Wayland and not having to deal with the potential security risks. This should article describes how to disable SDDM on Xorg and start it using Wayland.

Creating the necessary configuration file

#

Location: /etc/sddm.conf.d/

Create the file 10-wayland.conf with the following content:

[General]
DisplayServer=wayland

Stop and disable the default displaymanager script

#

systemctl stop display-manager-legacy
systemctl disable display-manager-legacy

[!NOTE] You need to do this from a tty, so switch to it using CTRL-ALT-F3. If you don’t, stopping the displaymanager will likely kill your session.. :)

Enable and start sddm

#

systemctl enable sddm
systemctl start sddm

[!NOTE] Same as above; do this from a tty. When you start, you will immediately dropped back into the GUI and see the normal graphical login screen

Conclusion

#

Now you should be running SDDM under Wayland.