I generally agree with what vidd said. I'm not sure whether it's good to try to modify gdm as gnome seems to move away from modularity more and more. I don't know enough about SLiM and xdm to really judge what's making them un/suitable, only tried both once or twice. But I think a discussion about this could help to see how much work it would be to make either of them suitable.
I also agree with vidd on the footprint perspective, even though I currently have no idea what the new gdm weighs as I haven't started testing karmic yet. Simon On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:44:17 -0400 "vidd" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Cody A.W. Somerville" <[email protected]> > To: "Xubuntu Development Discussion" > <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 11:14 AM > Subject: RFC: GDM in Karmic > > > > Hello Folks, > > > > As you may or may not be aware, the developers of the > gnome display > > manager > > (GDM) began a major rewrite with version 2.21. Now at > 2.27.x, the Ubuntu > > development team has determined the new GDM ready for > inclusion in Ubuntu > > and as such uploaded this new version a few weeks ago. > Unfortunately, the > > new GDM heavily relies on a number of gnome desktop > components currently > > such as gnome-session, metacity, gnome-settings-daemon, > etc. The reason > > for > > this is because the new gdm effectively logs in as the > gdm user, start a > > minimal gnome environment, and launches a GTK application > to provide a > > login > > prompt. > > > > Luckily I've been able to patch the gdm package to > actually start and to > > not pull in most of gnome like it was but the experience > is still > > horrible. > > Because gnome-settings-daemon is not running, nothing is > themed and there > > is > > no background. Because metacity is not running, you don't > have any window > > decorations. Because gnome-session is waiting for said > applications (this > > is > > just a hypothesis) to register with it, the cursor is > always the busy > > cursor. Other problems include but are not limited to the > inability to set > > the default session (except by adding a .dmrc file to > /etc/skel - eww), > > and > > no more gdm-cdd config (it now uses gconfd). > > > > One possible solution is to try and use xfce4 > applications/components > > where > > possible (gdm is hard coded to start gnome-session > > --autostart=/usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/ - as > you might have > > guessed, /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/ contains > desktop files to > > be > > used by gnome-session to launch our friends like > gnome-settings-daemon, > > metacity, gdm-simple-greeter or whatever). From initial > investigations, > > the > > effort could possibly involve patching gdm, > gdm-simple-greeter, > > xfce4-session, xfwm4, and more... which would be a lot of > work for no > > guarantee that we'll be able to end up with something > we're happy with in > > time for karmic. > > > > Another solution that quickly comes to mind is the use of > another desktop > > manager. Thus far I've evaluated slim and xdm and found > them unsuitable. > > Luckily, there appears there might be some other > solutions still to be > > investigated. If you know of anything, please send me a > private e-mail > > with > > details. > > > > A third solution would be to reupload the 2.20.x series > of GDM (the gdm we > > know and for the most part love) under a new name (such > as gdm-2.20, > > gdm-legacy, or something) and use that. Its the least > amount of work and > > its > > been doing the job. The biggest drawback to this is that > the 2.20.x series > > is no longer supported/maintained by upstream so we'll > not be able to run > > to > > gdm's developers for bug fixes and we certainly can't > expect any new > > features. However, I'm personally starting to feel that > this would be the > > best option for Karmic as all this option requires is a > decision (which > > I'd > > like to make with consensus of the team and involved > folks from the > > community) and we can continue to work on integrating the > new gdm and then > > ship it when *we're ready* to do so. > > > > Cheers, > > > > -- > > Cody A.W. Somerville > > Software Systems Release Engineer > > Foundations Team > > Custom Engineering Solutions Group > > Canonical OEM Services > > Phone: +1-781-850-2087 > > Cell: +1-506-471-8402 > > Email: [email protected] > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > -- > > xubuntu-devel mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel > > > > My two cents: > For what it's worth, creating a gdm-legacy application > is a good > stop-gap...as long as it is only a stop-gap. > You have stated that SLiM and xDM are not ready for > production-grade > release (I agree) > > Can we get a list of the shortfalls of these two window > managers so we can > get them up to snuff? > IMHO modifying the new gdm to load xfce is probably going > to be MORE work > then getting SLiM production ready (and then there is the > footprint > consideration) > > thank you > vidd > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Web mail provided by NuNet, Inc. The Premier National provider. > http://www.nni.com/ > -- xubuntu-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
