This post documents how to setup an instance of Fedora 39 running the Cinnamon desktop to automatically login to a specific account. I don’t normally advise you do this, but in this instance Fedora is running as a virtual machine on a controlled host, so it won’t matter nearly as much. I’m documenting both the method using the GUI and the method from the command line within a shell. It should also be noted that this is not the way to do it if you’ve installed Fedora with the Gnome shell (Gnome 45 as of the date of this post).

Start System Settings and scroll down to the Administration section at the very bottom. You’re going to want to click Login Window.

When you click Login Window the system is going to ask for your password. Type it in.

When the Login Window section opens, click the middle Users button at the top. Type in the Username and set the delay before connection to 0 for immediate opening. There’s nothing to save, just close it at this point. The next time the instance reopens then Fedora will immediately open to the desktop with that username.

Now let’s look at the command line method.

The configuration file is /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf. The lines you want to add or modify are autologin-user and autologin-user-timeout. Since I used the graphical tool to set those values, the configuration file is already set.

I’m documenting this primarily because I’ve need of this from time to time and I’m tired of having to fumble around for the steps on how to do this. So here it is for all to benefit.