14 DAY TRIAL // In a recent report, Canonical's Will Cooke reveals the fact that the Ubuntu Desktop team is currently considering replacing the LightDM login manager with GDM (GNOME Display Manager) in the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 release.
You might have noticed some rumors earlier this week about Ubuntu 17.10 ditching its beloved LightDM login manager for GNOME's GDM display manager, especially now that the daily build ISO images are shipping with the GNOME desktop environment by default instead of Unity, but it's now official and confirmed by Canonical, who said that they didn't have time to make LightDM work with GNOME.
"We’ve made the decision to switch to using GNOME Display Manager (GDM) instead of LightDM. We had planned to try LightDM, and based on our investigations it became apparent that we would need to invest a considerable amount of time making changes to get everything to work correctly, more time than we have," says Will Cooke, Director, Ubuntu Desktop, Canonical.
First Alpha of Ubuntu 17.10 expected June 29, 2017
As you are aware, Canonical decided to stop the development of its in-house built Unity user interface and replace it with the more popular GNOME desktop environment for the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system, due for release on October 19, 2017. The LightDM login manager was a strong part of the Unity desktop, but now it's going away too, whether you like it or not.
For now, the latest daily build ISO images of Ubuntu 17.10 are still shipping with the LightDM login manager by default, as we can see from the screenshot below, but the change to GDM is expected to land before the first Alpha milestone, which should hit the streets later this month on June 29, 2017. Unfortunately, guest sessions won't be supported in Ubuntu 17.10 as they are planned for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
