sddm-astronaut-theme

sddm-astronaut-theme is a series of themes for the SDDM display manager made by Keyitdev.

It's written using the latest version of Qt, which is Qt6. Its key features include virtual keyboard support and an installation script. This theme also support animated wallpapers. You can easily change its appearance by choosing another of the ten pre-made themes or creating your own. Each of these themes was created by modifying just one file - config.

All themes were created for 1080p. However, they should work well in other resolutions.

Preview of all themes

Preview of animated themes

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2cfc947e-4621-4e98-b5f3-07d5e224b80c

<!-- <h2><a href="https://youtu.be/4tQ56xh7wBc" target="_blank">Watch more on Youtube!</a></h2> --> <details> <summary><h2>Detailed previews</h2></summary>

Astronaut	Black hole
Japanese aesthetic	Pixel sakura static
Purple leaves	Cyberpunk
Post-apocalyptic hacker	xxx

Hyprland Kath

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1d926e76-44f7-4d99-ac6d-d1abcd7ed688

Pixel sakura

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ea004765-7e84-4a0d-90cd-aaac97679f62

Jake the dog

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/181d48c2-f152-45f5-b568-21145be180f6

</details>

Installation

Automatic Installation

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bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/keyitdev/sddm-astronaut-theme/master/setup.sh)"

Works on distributions using pacman, xbps-install, dnf, zypper.
Remember to always read the scripts you run from the internet.

NixOS Installation

Using System Configuration with Custom Overrides

While not officially packaged by the upstream maintainers, there is a community-maintained package maintained by @DaniD3v, @uxodb, and @qweered. You can install and customize the theme by creating an override of the package in your configuration.nix:

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let
  sddm-astronaut = (pkgs.sddm-astronaut.override {
    embeddedTheme = "japanese_aesthetic";  # or any other theme
    themeConfig = {
      # Customize colors and settings
      HeaderTextColor = "#d5c4a1";
      Background = "Backgrounds/your-custom-background.png";
      # ... other theme configuration options
    };
  }).overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: {
    # Optional: Inject custom background image
    installPhase = oldAttrs.installPhase + ''
      chmod u+w $out/share/sddm/themes/sddm-astronaut-theme/Backgrounds/
      cp ${./relative/path/to/your-custom-background.png} \
        $out/share/sddm/themes/sddm-astronaut-theme/Backgrounds/your-custom-background.png
    '';
  });
in
{
  environment.systemPackages = [ sddm-astronaut ];
  
  services.displayManager.sddm = {
    enable = true;
    package = pkgs.kdePackages.sddm;
    extraPackages = with pkgs; [
      kdePackages.qtmultimedia # Required for video backgrounds/audio
    ];
    theme = "sddm-astronaut-theme";
  };
}

Manual Installation

1. Install dependencies

sddm >= 0.21.0, qt6 >= 6.8, qt6-svg >= 6.8, qt6-virtualkeyboard >= 6.8, qt6-multimedia >= 6.8

You may also want to install additional video codecs like h.264.

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sddm qt6-svg qt6-virtualkeyboard qt6-multimedia-ffmpeg     # Arch
sddm qt6-svg qt6-virtualkeyboard qt6-multimedia            # Void
sddm qt6-qtsvg qt6-qtvirtualkeyboard qt6-qtmultimedia      # Fedora
sddm-qt6 libQt6Svg6 qt6-virtualkeyboard qt6-virtualkeyboard-imports qt6-multimedia qt6-multimedia-imports        # OpenSUSE
sddm libqt6svg6 qt6-virtualkeyboard-plugin libqt6multimedia6 qml6-module-qtquick-controls qml6-module-qtquick-effects libxcb-cursor0 # Debian Unstable

2. Clone this repository

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sudo git clone -b master --depth 1 https://github.com/keyitdev/sddm-astronaut-theme.git /usr/share/sddm/themes/sddm-astronaut-theme

3. Copy fonts to /usr/share/fonts/

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sudo cp -r /usr/share/sddm/themes/sddm-astronaut-theme/Fonts/* /usr/share/fonts/

4. Edit /etc/sddm.conf

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echo "[Theme]
Current=sddm-astronaut-theme" | sudo tee /etc/sddm.conf

5. Edit /etc/sddm.conf.d/virtualkbd.conf

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echo "[General]
InputMethod=qtvirtualkeyboard" | sudo tee /etc/sddm.conf.d/virtualkbd.conf

Selecting a theme

You can select theme by editing metadata (/usr/share/sddm/themes/sddm-astronaut-theme/metadata.desktop).

Just edit this line:

ConfigFile=Themes/astronaut.conf

All available configs are in Themes directory.

Previewing a theme

You can preview the set theme without logging out by runnning:

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sddm-greeter-qt6 --test-mode --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/sddm-astronaut-theme/

Note that depending on the system configuration, the preview may differ slightly from the actual login screen.

Sources

Initially the theme was independed fork of MarianArlt's theme but now the project has come a long way and started to significantly deviate from the original.
Many of the wallpapers and fonts used in this project are very popular and copied from one user to another, so I don't know who the original creator is.
I also redesigned many of them, but here are links to some of the orginal artists who created these wonderful wallpapers:

• Astronaut: wallpaper, font
• Black hole: wallpaper, font
• Japanese aesthetic: wallpaper by gharly, font
• Purple leaves: wallpaper, font
• Cyberpunk: wallpaper by patrika, font
• Post-apocalyptic hacker: wallpaper by patrika, font
• Hyprland Kath: wallpaper, font
• Pixel sakura: wallpaper, font
• Jake the dog: wallpaper, font

Supporting project

You can support me simply by dropping a star on github or giving a subscription on YouTube.

If you enjoyed it and would like to show your appreciation, you can make a donation using kofi.

Distributed under the GPLv3+ License.
Copyright (C) 2022-2025 Keyitdev.