Disable auto-login from the CLI

After successfully installing Ubuntu and logging in to the Unity desktop, I followed the prompts to enable the proprietary display drivers.

After rebooting, the Unity desktop is now entirely unresponsive. The mouse pointer moves but I can't do anything.

After some research, it looks like it is specifically a problem with these drivers and Unity, so I should be OK with, say, the classic Gnome desktop.

Unfortunately, I enabled auto login so I don't get the chance to chose another desktop. Can I fix this from the CLI?

1 Answer

Create or modify the file /etc/gdm/custom.conf, and write the following content:

[daemon]
TimedLoginEnable=false
AutomaticLoginEnable=false
TimedLogin=enzotib
AutomaticLogin=enzotib
TimedLoginDelay=30
DefaultSession=gnome

where enzotib should be replaced with your username and gnome could be replaced by

• gnome - for Ubuntu
• gnome-classic - for Ubuntu classic
• gnome-2d - for Ubuntu classic (no effects)