)
DMS Greeter is a login screen for greetd that looks and behaves like the DankMaterialShell lock screen. It ships as a single dms-greeter binary with the Quickshell UI embedded, runs under niri, Hyprland, Sway, Scroll, Miracle WM, labwc, or MangoWC, and syncs your DMS theme, wallpaper, and settings so the login screen matches your desktop.
This is a monorepo containing both the greeter interface and the core backend:
dank-greeter/
├── quickshell/ # QML-based greeter interface
│ ├── Modules/Greetd/ # Login screen, user picker, session selection
│ ├── Services/ # Read-only status (network, battery, audio, weather)
│ ├── Widgets/ # Dank UI controls
│ ├── Common/ # Shared resources, themes, and i18n
│ ├── DankCommon/ # → symlink into the dank-qml-common submodule
│ └── translations/ # POEditor-managed string catalogs
├── dank-qml-common/ # Shared DMS widget library (git submodule)
├── core/ # Go backend and CLI
│ ├── cmd/dms-greeter/# CLI entrypoint and greeter launcher
│ └── internal/ # Compositor launcher, greetd config, sync, PAM
├── distro/ # Distribution packaging + NixOS module
├── assets/ # sysusers/tmpfiles, AppArmor profile, sample configs
└── Makefile # Build, install, and dev targets
yay -S greetd-dms-greeter-gitOfficial packages are available from the DankLinux OBS repository. Add the repo for your distribution, then install dms-greeter (stable) or dms-greeter-git (master; Conflicts with stable):
# Debian 13
sudo apt install dms-greeter
# sudo apt install dms-greeter-git
# openSUSE Tumbleweed
zypper install dms-greeter
# zypper install dms-greeter-gitUbuntu uses the same package names from ppa:avengemedia/danklinux. See the Installation guide for full repository setup.
sudo dnf copr enable avengemedia/danklinux
sudo dnf install dms-greeterFor the latest development build from master (Conflicts with the stable package):
sudo dnf copr enable avengemedia/danklinux
sudo dnf install dms-greeter-gitecho 'repository=https://void.danklinux.com/dms/current' | sudo tee /etc/xbps.d/dms.conf
sudo xbps-install -S dms-greeter
# sudo xbps-install -S dms-greeter-git # master snapshots; Conflicts with stableThe packages create the greeter user (via systemd-sysusers for atomic/immutable compatibility, with package script fallback), set up directories and permissions, and apply SELinux contexts where relevant.
After installing from any package:
dms-greeter enable # point greetd at dms-greeter
dms-greeter sync # sync your DMS theme to the login screenOr run dms-greeter install for interactive setup - it installs greetd where needed and writes /etc/greetd/config.toml for you.
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/AvengeMedia/dank-greeter.git
cd dank-greeter
make build
sudo make installAlready cloned without submodules? Run git submodule update --init first -
the shared widget library (dank-qml-common)
is vendored as a submodule and the build fails without it.
Then create the greeter user and cache directory if your setup doesn't have them:
sudo groupadd -r greeter
sudo useradd -r -g greeter -d /var/lib/greeter -s /bin/bash -c "System Greeter" greeter
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/greeter /var/cache/dms-greeter
sudo chown greeter:greeter /var/lib/greeter /var/cache/dms-greeter
sudo chmod 2770 /var/cache/dms-greeterAnd finish with dms-greeter enable && dms-greeter sync, or write /etc/greetd/config.toml yourself (see Usage).
At launch the embedded UI is unpacked read-only under the greeter cache
directory and verified against the binary on every start, so editing the
unpacked files has no effect. To run a modified copy of the UI, point
dms-greeter at any directory containing a shell.qml with -c <dir> or the
DMS_GREETER_SHELL_DIR environment variable - there is no implicit filesystem
lookup otherwise.
Add the repo to your flake inputs, then:
imports = [
inputs.dank-greeter.nixosModules.default
];
programs.dms-greeter = {
enable = true;
compositor.name = "niri"; # or hyprland, sway, labwc, mango, scroll, miracle
configHome = "/home/user"; # copies that user's DMS settings (and wallpaper) into the greeter data directory before greetd starts
};- greetd
- Quickshell (
qs) - One of the supported compositors
- Go 1.26+ (build only - the binary is pure Go, no CGO)
DMS Sync
dms-greeter sync copies your DankMaterialShell theme, wallpaper, and settings
into the greeter cache, so the login screen matches your desktop. Greeter
options live in DMS under Settings → Greeter - the greeter itself only
reads the synced files.
Multi User Log in as any system user, with per-user themes and profile images in the user picker.
Multiple Compositors One binary launches the greeter under niri, Hyprland, Sway, Scroll, Miracle WM, labwc, or MangoWC, generating the compositor config on the fly.
Session Memory
Remembers the last selected session and user. Disable via the
greeterRememberLastSession and greeterRememberLastUser settings, or the
--no-save-session / --no-save-username flags.
Fingerprint & Security Keys
Optional fingerprint (pam_fprintd) and U2F (pam_u2f) login, managed
through /etc/pam.d/greetd. Existing custom PAM configuration is respected.
Localized User-facing strings are translatable and managed through POEditor.
greetd runs the greeter through /etc/greetd/config.toml:
[terminal]
vt = 1
[default_session]
user = "greeter"
command = "/usr/bin/dms-greeter --command niri"The launcher takes care of the compositor side:
dms-greeter --command niri
dms-greeter --command hyprland
dms-greeter --command sway
dms-greeter --command mangowc
dms-greeter --command niri -C /path/to/custom-niri.kdl
dms-greeter --command niri --remember-last-user false --remember-last-session falseOnly niri has a generated greeter config path managed by dms-greeter sync:
- niri:
dms-greeter syncwrites the generated greeter config to/etc/greetd/niri/config.kdl. Add local manual tweaks in/etc/greetd/niri_overrides.kdl. - Other compositors use a launcher-generated config by default. For a custom compositor config, add
-C /path/to/configto thedms-greetercommand in/etc/greetd/config.toml.
The greeter is personalized with wallpapers, themes, weather, and clock formats the same way as DMS itself.
Single user: run dms-greeter sync and you're done.
Multi-user systems: one main admin runs full sync once to set up greetd and the shared cache (dms-greeter sync, or dms-greeter sync --local when developing from a checkout). Every other account - including other admins - should only run:
dms-greeter sync --profileBefore that, an administrator must add each user to the greeter group in DMS Settings → Users (greeter toggle) or with sudo usermod -aG greeter <username>. Each added user must log out and back in before --profile will work.
Per-user settings are stored under /var/cache/dms-greeter/users/<username>/ for the login picker; the root cache remains the default fallback and is owned by whoever ran full sync.
Run dms-greeter sync --local from a dank-greeter checkout to build its Go launcher with the checkout's QML embedded. The development binary is installed separately at /usr/local/bin/dms-greeter-local; the package-owned /usr/bin/dms-greeter is not replaced. Re-run the command after Go, QML, or dank-qml-common changes. Run dms-greeter sync without --local to point greetd back at the packaged binary.
The dank-qml-common submodule must be initialized (git submodule update --init dank-qml-common). dankgo is consumed at the version pinned in core/go.mod; use a Go workspace or replace directive explicitly when testing a local dankgo checkout.
Manual method: if you want greeter settings to always mirror your shell:
# Add yourself to the greeter group
sudo usermod -aG greeter $USER
# Set ACLs to allow greeter user to traverse your home directory
setfacl -m u:greeter:x ~ ~/.config ~/.local ~/.cache ~/.local/state
# Set group permissions on DMS directories
sudo chgrp -R greeter ~/.config/DankMaterialShell ~/.local/state/DankMaterialShell ~/.cache/quickshell
sudo chmod -R g+rX ~/.config/DankMaterialShell ~/.local/state/DankMaterialShell ~/.cache/quickshell
# Create symlinks for theme files
sudo ln -sf ~/.config/DankMaterialShell/settings.json /var/cache/dms-greeter/settings.json
sudo ln -sf ~/.local/state/DankMaterialShell/session.json /var/cache/dms-greeter/session.json
sudo ln -sf ~/.cache/DankMaterialShell/dms-colors.json /var/cache/dms-greeter/colors.json
# Logout and login for group membership to take effectThe cache directory location can be overridden with --cache-dir (default /var/cache/dms-greeter). It should be owned by <greeter-user>:<greeter-group> with 2770 permissions; if the greeter user doesn't exist yet, sync falls back to root:<greeter-group>.
Install your distribution's fingerprint service and PAM integration before enabling it. On Fedora the native stack is:
sudo dnf install fprintd fprintd-pam
fprintd-enrollAfter enrollment, enable fingerprint login in DMS Settings → Greeter. The toggle applies the PAM configuration on the next dms-greeter sync; use dms-greeter sync --auth to apply authentication configuration alone.
greetd tries fingerprint and password sequentially. Managed PAM allows two scans for up to ten seconds before password fallback. Existing distro PAM policy takes precedence, so fallback timing can differ.
Verify enrollment with fprintd-list "$USER"; pass a token such as fprintd-enroll -f right-thumb to enroll a specific finger. Security keys similarly require pam_u2f setup and key registration before enabling the login toggle.
If fprintd-enroll reports No devices available, check the libfprint supported devices list. Some Validity/Synaptics readers are not supported by the native stack regardless of distribution; the open-fprintd service with the python-validity driver may work instead. Don't run the stock fprintd daemon alongside its replacement.
make dev # fast build without the embedded UI
make run # preview the greeter UI in your current session
make build # release build with the UI embedded
make test # run the Go test suite