After reading many different forum posts (including ones on these forums), I've decided to write this guide to quickly get a unity-greeter welcome screen running on Mint (regardless of whether you're using the MATE or Cinnamon install), theme it so it seems "mintier" rather than "ubuntish", and making sure that the switch user functionality works on both DE's.
Screenshots in the second post.
Step 1: Install lightdm and unity-greeter.
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sudo apt-get install lightdm unity-greeter
Step 2: Modify the conf file to use unity-greeter.
Normally, this step is done for you, but let's just make sure it's all configured correctly. So we open the configuration file:
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sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
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greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=cinnamon
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greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=mate
Here, we download theme icons for Cinnamon and MATE, and replace the Ubuntu logo with one for Linux Mint. Start up a terminal session as root:
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sudo -i
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cd /tmp/
mkdir greeter_images
cd greeter_images
wget "http://forums.linuxmint.com/download/file.php?id=10992" -O custom_cinnamon_badge.png
wget "http://forums.linuxmint.com/download/file.php?id=10993" -O custom_mate_badge.png
wget "http://forums.linuxmint.com/download/file.php?id=10994" -O logo.png
chmod 644 *
chown root *
chgrp root *
sudo cp *.png /usr/share/unity-greeter/
cd ..
rm -rf /tmp/greeter_images
exit
Now let's use Mint icons and the default wallpaper, as well as the logo we've just downloaded. Log in as the lightdm user:
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sudo xhost +SI:localuser:lightdm
sudo su lightdm -s /bin/bash
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gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter background /usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint-maya/gelsan_green.png
gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter background-color '#CBCBCB'
gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter draw-grid false
gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter icon-theme-name Mint-X
gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter theme-name Mint-Z
exit
Depending on what version of Mint you're using, and what DE's you intend to use, and maybe even what order you install the DE's and the greeter, some of this will be configured automatically. But I've found that you sometimes need to intervene manually to get the "switch user" button to work (or even to appear in the first place).
To make sure, log in as root:
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sudo -i
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cd /usr/bin
mv gdmflexiserver gdmflexiserver.real
ln -s /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm/gdmflexiserver gdmflexiserver
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cd /usr/bin
mv mdmflexiserver mdmflexiserver.real
ln -s /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm/gdmflexiserver mdmflexiserver
* bigj231 for the Cinnamon and Mint logos
* Rowen on the MATE forums for the MATE icon
* And those who contributed to other forum posts.