ANNOUNCE: GDM 2.4.2.95 (unstable), the "Freeze?" release

[George <jirka 5z com>]

WAKIWAKIWAKIWAKIFOOO

(If you have no clue what gdm is, skip a few paragraphs down first)

[For a stable version use version 2.4.1.4]

So the last release was kind of crap.  The graphical greeter was broken,
it didn't actually include the theme document, it didn't compile on
non-linux, and other whacky things were wrong.  So this release fixes all
that (yeah right:)

Also note that I got confused by someone telling me the freeze was pushed
back and so there are new features (I couldn't help myself).  So this
time around it is actually frozen (I think).  I was never good with this
freeze thing :)

And now for the standard part of the release announcement:

GDM is the GNOME Display Manager, it is the little proggie that runs in the
background, runs your X sessions, presents you with a login box and then
tells you to piss off because you forgot your password.  It does pretty much
everything that you would want to use xdm for, but doesn't involve as much
crack.  It doesn't use any code from xdm, and has a more paranoid and safer
design overall.  It also includes many features over xdm, the biggest one of
which is that it is more user friendly, even if your X setup is failing.  The
goal is that users should never, ever have to use the command line to
customize or troubleshoot gdm.  It of course supports xdmcp, and in fact
extends xdmcp a little bit in places where I thought xdm was lacking (but is
still compatible with xdm's xdmcp).

News:
=====

Highlights of 2.4.2.96:

- When you log in twice on a different server, gdm warns you and if
  both logins are console logins on linux, then you can have gdm switch
  consoles for you instead of logging on.
 
- Errorgui (failsafe) dialogs now run mostly under the gdm user and not as root
 
- In the .desktop files we now refer to GDM as Login Screen and not GDM,
  fixes #85543
 
- Add ALL_SERVERS to the socket protocol which returns all the displays
 
- DESKTOP_SESSION is set in addition to GDMSESSION.  Also these are unset
  in the standard Xsession file not to pollute the env namespace.
 
- Add CDE session .desktop (Brian Cameron)
 
- Remove some debugging output (and make it only output stuff when debug is on)
 
- Fix the output reading of failsafe yes/no dialog
 
- Fix some typos in config stuff (Ali Akcaagac, me)
 
- Graphical greeter should now work again (Frederic Crozat, Diego Gonzalez, me)
 
- Fix compilation on non-pam setups and non-linux setup
 
- Fix default paths (Brian Cameron, me)
 
- Actually include the theme document!
 
- Minor other fixes
 
- Translation updates (Christian Rose, Vincent van Adrighem)

Note:  GDM2 was originally written by Martin K. Petersen <mkp mkp net>, and
has for a while now been maintained by the Queen of England.  She is usually
not responsive to bug reports or feature requests.  You can try to send them
to me however.

Note2:  If installing from the tarball do note that make install overwrites
most of the setup files, all except gdm.conf.  It will however save backups
with the .orig extension first.

Note3:  Note3 has been depracated ...

Downloading:
============

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gdm/2.4/
ftp://ftp.5z.com/pub/gdm/

Sorry no RPMS.  There is a spec file included in the tarball and it may or may
not work (it should, and it did some time ago but I haven't tried it lately).

Have fun,

George

PS:  I have become an evil Red Hat intern tuesday.  I have not yet managed
to take over the company, but this is in progress.  I still have not yet even
managed to get a @redhat.com email addy.  I am pretty much at the same stage
here as I am with taking over the world.  I have however figured out a
strategy.  Instead of using force, I will attempt to take over the world
by the world volunteering to be taken over.  So then this is your notice
that everyone (including you) should volunteer to be taken over.  Right now!
Unless you don't want to of course.  Wonder if this will work ...

-- 
George <jirka 5z com>
   When the rich make war it's the poor that die.
                       -- Jean-Paul Sartre