List all available display managers

Question

How can I get the list of all the display managers installed in my Ubuntu laptop from the terminal?

Answer 1

It is possible to search for x-display-manager meta used in Debian package that provide an X display manager.

Using aptitude:

aptitude search '~i~Px-display-manager'

Or debconf:

./dm_list.sh

#!/bin/sh
set -e

# source debconf library
. /usr/share/debconf/confmodule

# set default display manager
DEFAULT_DISPLAY_MANAGER_FILE=/etc/X11/default-display-manager

CHOICES=
if db_metaget shared/default-x-display-manager choices; then
  CHOICES="$RET"
fi

echo $CHOICES
echo default $DEFAULT_DISPLAY_MANAGER_FILE

sudo ./dm_list.sh

References:

• DEBIAN/config file from lightdm debian package
• How do I get a list of packages that “Provides” something" using dpkg?