"I don't really see what the display manager has to do with "remote terminal setup" or "auto start of apps", are you sure you're not comparing Window Managers?"
Yes, I am comparing display managers. or trying to, but wrote carelessly.
When I went from gdm to wdm, it wasn't auto start that vanished, that stayed and I miswrote, but what went was the ability to shutdown as a user from the control panel icon. I was very surprised too. When I tried to put the shutdown control back into the panel, all it offered was logout. Whereas with gdm, it offers you that screen where you choose between logout and shutdown. Then when I logged out and got to the wdm login screen, shutdown turned out not to work unless you first logged on as root. So I was stuck with putting in sudo and a new custom little panel thing.
I couldn't see why changing the display manager should have done this, but what do I know?
Then what I meant by remote terminal is that in gdm you have those very convenient screens for setting up xdmcp. Well probably you guys never use this, but over a home network its very easy and simple, and gdm lets you set it up very easily.
Sorry, autostart is of course in the window manager.
But, anyway is there a reason why wdm should seem faster? It seems without measuring anything and to an admittedly untrained eye, as if its a lot faster. Is this generally accepted, or am I imagining things?
Peter