NoNameNoBlame wrote:Edit:
Or I'd choose a theme that offers no Avatars at all, right from the start.

That's definitely an option, even with earlier sddm versions than 0.14.0.

But the OP wanted to keep the default theme.

What - in Your opinion - would be the ultimate test, who is right?

What theme shall we choose?
What and how shall we configure?

NoNameNoBlame wrote:What - in Your opinion - would be the ultimate test, who is right?

Look at sddm's source code.

What theme shall we choose?

breeze

What and how shall we configure?

"EnableAvatars=false" in /etc/sddm.conf of course, that's what this discussion is about after all.

But please note that I actually originally stated that I'm not sure whether the breeze theme respects it in the first place...

It definitely respects the DisableAvatarsThreshold option though.
JFYI, I happen to know where these patches (to add those options) come from and why they were done...

# Breeze theme is defined to show Username-InputField
# if UserList (=Avatars) is NOT wanted:

breeze/Login.qml: property bool showUsernamePrompt: !showUserList

# found with:
# $ command grep -i 'user' `locate 'sddm/themes' | command grep -v svg` | less -S


# If we test breeze-theme, result depends on
# at least: presence of variable in theme-definition.

# Question 1: Does it's value depend on sddm.conf's EnableAvatars?
# That would help the original poster. Let's test.

# Question 2: Is this the ultimate test? It may be not.

# Give me some time. I have to change my installation first, and a have to
# save some files. I don't trust KDE neon treatment of deb-'conffiles'.

Test Result:

1/2) Solution to Original Poster's problem:

# /etc/sddm.conf
[Users]
# MaximumUid=65000
# MinimumUid=1000
MaximumUid=65543
MinimumUid=65543

# No Avatars any more. Normal, traditional text login, again.

2/2) EnableAvatars=…

Changes nothing. true/false is irrelevant.

NoNameNoBlame wrote:Test Result:

1/2) Solution to Original Poster's problem:

# /etc/sddm.conf
[Users]
# MaximumUid=65000
# MinimumUid=1000
MaximumUid=65543
MinimumUid=65543

# No Avatars any more. Normal, traditional text login, again.

Yes, or set DisableAvatarsThreshold to a lower level...

NoNameNoBlame wrote:
2/2) EnableAvatars=…

Changes nothing. true/false is irrelevant.

Ok, so this doesn't work, sorry.

Might be considered as a bug, and should probably be reported as such....