Change login screen purple background 18.10

Question

This is almost a dup of this question, but with a slight variation.

Instead of using a picture file for the login screen background, I'd like to use the same solid color background that I've set for the lock screen in the Background settings panel.

Where are the lock screen solid color panels located? What mod to the referenced question would I need to make? Could I just place a renamed copy of the solid color panel where the current background file is, so that I don't have to modify the gdm3.css file?

I'm looking for the easiest way.

Solution

to change the login screen color equivalent to those 15 colors which are available when we open Settings>Background>LockScreen>color

first set the required color as lockscreen from the settings>background>lockscreen>color

to know the value of this color run the below command.

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.screensaver primary-color

Example:

pratap@i7-6550U:~$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.screensaver primary-color
'#7a8aa2'
pratap@i7-6550U:~$ 

Copy the color, in above case it is #7a8aa2

now we need to edit the gdm3.css file.

open the file with your favorite editor, mine is gedit. so
sudo -H gedit /etc/alternatives/gdm3.css

go to line number around 1985 & 1986 and find the below content.

#lockDialogGroup {
  background: none;
  background-color: none;
  background-gradient-direction: vertical;
  background-gradient-start: #6D2169;
  background-gradient-end: #370026; }

change the content with

#lockDialogGroup {
  background: none;
  background-color: none;
  background-gradient-direction: vertical;
  background-gradient-start: #7a8aa2;
  background-gradient-end: #7a8aa2; }

here in the line number 1985 & 1986 put the color you want in place of #7a8aa2

save the file, close & reboot to see the change.

these are the 15 colors + default one.

#7a634b
#425265
#475b52
#888888
#7a8aa2
#ff89a9
#ed9116
#d272c4
#437740
#fad166
#ab2876
#5d479d
#008094
#db5d33
#000000

#023c88

---

Comments

[Boris Hamanov]

Excellent! Same color I choose too! Thanks again. I wish they'd drop that purple theme...

[Boris Hamanov]

Your/my choice of blue looks a lot more modern than purple :-)

[Boris Hamanov]

Just a minor tweak for you... instead of sudo gedit you should probably change that to sudo -H gedit, so as you don't accidentally create a login loop. Use sudo -H whenever you start a graphic app from the command line. Cheers!

[akikara]

What about changing the date and time appears? @heynnema

[Boris Hamanov]

@akikara I don't understand your question.

[akikara]

In Ubuntu 18.10 based on locale settings date is displayed as Friday, Jan 25. I want to add year to this.

[Boris Hamanov]

How to do this in 19.04? #lockDialogGroup is different in /etc/alternatives/gdm3.css, and modifying the background color there doesn't work. If you'd like me to start a new question for this, please let me know :-)

[UnKNOWn]

no, there is already a asked and accepted question relates with 19.04

[UnKNOWn]

askubuntu.com/a/1135698/739431

[UnKNOWn]

please have a look on comments in this post.. askubuntu.com/q/1149123/739431 @heynnema

[Boris Hamanov]

@PRATAP thanks for the fast reply. My .css file looks different. I tried to modify the color to #7A8AA2 (maybe I should have left lower case a's? Like #7a8aa2), but when I tried it, it just gave a flashing screen. My .css has #lockDialogGroup { background-color: #2C001E; }.

[Boris Hamanov]

@PRATAP Maybe my problem is how I modified the .css file. I had changed #lockDialogGroup { background-color: #2C001E; } to #lockDialogGroup { background-color: #7A8AA2;} ##2C001E; }. Maybe I forgot the trailing ; I wonder if that's it, or if it didn't like that I made the last line a comment (so I knew what to go back to if I needed to...).

[Boris Hamanov]

@PRATAP yes... that was it. I had an edit error. It's working now.

[UnKNOWn]

thank you @heynnema