Running the desktop under a non-root user

[Head_on_a_Stick]

The Debian stretch release (upon which MX 18 is based) introduced the ability to run the X server as a regular user rather than root:

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/ ... uires-root

As noted in the link, this reduces the risk of privilege escalation via bugs in the X server.

However, the MX desktop runs the LightDM display manager (login screen) and this runs X as the root user.

To run X as the regular user the GDM display manager could be installed to replace LightDM but this draws in gnome-shell and many other dependencies, which may not be wanted.

Alternatively simply disable the display manager completely:

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sudo sysv-rc-conf lightdm off

Once it is disabled the user will be presented with a TTY (console) login screen and from there the desktop can be launched with

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startx

To automate this (for TTY1) add this line to the end of the file at ~/.profile:

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[ $(tty) = /dev/tty1 ] && exec startx

To apply this configuration for all users on the system, add the line to a file at /etc/X11/Xsession.d/99z-zstartx instead.

If other desktops are installed change between them with

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sudo update-alternatives --config x-session-manager

(The x-session-manager alternative determines what is run when the startx command is passed.)

Note that this method will not work under VirtualBox or if the kernel has no driver that supports your video card.

To revert to LightDM use this command:

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sudo sysv-rc-conf lightdm on