Fix White Screen At Login For Arch Linux

I recently updated Arch-based Antergos Linux. It was system suggested and it upgraded GNOME 3.16 to GNOME 3.18. Even before I could enjoy the new features of GNOME 3.18, I ran into an irritating problem with the login.

At the LIghtDM greeter screen, when I click on the user to enter my login credentials, the screen would just turn white instead of showing the password field. I had a feeling that the recent system upgrade caused the issue, but I did not know that the culprit was GNOME 3.18.

It seems like recent upgrades have broken a number of Linux systems. Last week itself, my Ubuntu 15.04 had login issue because of a kernel upgrade and now with Arch Linux. I am going to show you work around so that you could get rid of this white screen at login and use your Antergos or any other Arch Linux system as you usually do.

Petty, blind Workaround

One workaround is to simply hit and try in the blind. Just put the cursor in the middle of the screen (where the username normally would be), and click on it. You’ll see that cursor has been changed to somewhat like English letter “I” (see in the picture above). You can put your password, blindly again, press enter and you would be inside the system.

But this workaround is not even worth to be called a workaround. So, what do we do?

Ugly but robust workaround

The alternative is to disable lightDM and use GDM. I know that GDM doesn’t look pretty like LightDM, but as long as you won’t have to play blind, you could tolerate it, can’t you? Let’s see how to do it.

When you are at the login screen, press Ctrl+Alt+F2 (or F1 or F7). This will take you to the command line interface. Enter your username and password here.

Next is that we need to install GDM. Use the following command to install it:

sudo pacman -S gdm

Next, we need to disable LightDM. Use the command below for that:

sudo systemctl disable lightdm

Now, we need to enable GDM. Use the command below to enable GDM:

sudo systemctl enable gdm

Reboot the system:

sudo reboot

On the next boot, you’ll find GDM instead of LightDM. Not as pretty as the previous one, but it will let you enter into the system.

Until we receive a bug fix for this LightDM issue with GNOME 3.18, you can continue using GDM. Later on, just do the opposite of what we just did (disable GDM and enable LightDM). No need to go in command line interface, you can use the terminal from within the system.