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otter-greeter runs before your user compositor session starts.

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Components

BinaryRole
otter-greeterdRoot daemon: PAM, logind seats, AccountsService, IPC, session launch
otter-greeter-uiUnprivileged Wayland login UI
The greeter UI runs on Hyprland for the login screen only. Your session compositor is separate.

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Installation

After pikman install otter-shell, enable the systemd service: 
sudo systemctl enable otter-greeter.service
System files installed:
  • /etc/otter-shell/otter-greeter.conf
  • /etc/otter-shell/otter-greeter-hyprland.conf
  • /etc/pam.d/otter-greeter
  • /etc/pam.d/otter-greeter-autologin
  • /usr/lib/systemd/system/otter-greeter.service
A dedicated system user otter-greeter is created during package installation.

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Configuration

Main config: /etc/otter-shell/otter-greeter.conf
SettingDefault
Greeter compositor/usr/bin/start-hyprland -- --config /etc/otter-shell/otter-greeter-hyprland.conf
Display VT7
State path/var/lib/otter-greeter/state.conf
Runtime sockets/run/otter-greeter/<seat>.sock
Wayland sessions are discovered from configured .desktop directories. X11 sessions are ignored.

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Authentication

  • PAM handles password authentication
  • Fingerprint auth is PAM-controlled (via fprintd when configured)
  • Autologin runs once per daemon process per seat; failure falls back to interactive login
  • Expired-password flows use PAM conversation prompts on the auth surface
  • User listing prefers AccountsService; falls back to /etc/passwd for normal login users

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Dependencies

otter-greeter depends on otter-wallpaper (same version), Hyprland (greeter compositor only), accountsservice, and adduser.