Re: New module proposal: LightDM

[Ray Strode <halfline gmail com>]

Hi,

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 2:50 AM, Robert Ancell <robert ancell gmail com> wrote:
> While I appreciate the use of a full session for the greeter has it's
> advantages, I'm not sure they're all necessary for the limited GUI
> required in a greeter.
It's not necessary (i mean there's a lot of prior art showing that).
I'd argue though that doing it any other way is wrong.

> It really comes down to flexibility - I think any capable application developer should be able to develop a greeter
> (with a full session if required) without needing detailed knowledge
> of how the display manager works.
I agree the interface between the greeter and daemon in GDM could be
cleaned up, and doing that would be a worthwhile thing to do.

> I had been trying to get this interface into GDM, but I'd come to the conclusion that the
> architecture of GDM is overly complex and that holds back innovation.
We have the ability to simplify the complicated parts of the
architecture where necessary.  It's just internal code and it can be
changed to fit needs as necessary.  There's no API/ABI worries or
anything like that.

We can fix problems, all it takes is fixing them... and of course
there's 3 maintainers of GDM that are very familiar with the code.
We're all frequently available to answer questions, too (although,
like everyone else we're all busy doing other things as well)

> I am talking with other projects and trying to get people working
> together.  I'd like to see the fragmentation in display managers
> reduce so we can look at the daemon as the boring reliable bit and
> have people go wild designing new interfaces!
Ensuring the display manager is flexible enough to meet the
expectations of designers is an important goal.
There's no doubt, telling a designer with a competent design,  "we
can't implement that" often means the user loses.   I think that's why
one of the main reasons parts of GNOME 3 are getting themed with CSS
and getting written in javascript.

Adding another display manager fragments things even more, though.  2
display managers for GNOME would be bad for GNOME.

--Ray