Re: [gdm-list] gdm request - choose local Xserver at login

["Pascal Ronecker" <pascal ronecker gmail com>]

Thank you !

You're right concerning the "end-user" confusion, and choosing the session is certainly better.
I now need to convince our sysadmins team to upgrade ... (we are still using gdm 
2.8.0.7 !!!)

One thing though :
if a user chooses a session supposed to use only an external monitor, and that monitor is not connected to the laptop, 
they, he's screwed up. 
For sure it's not a gdm matter, but maybe someone here knows if there's a way to detect if a device is plugged.
(say : I choose a wrong session, X tries to starts but fails to detect the monitor, so it switches back to session choice)

On 6/7/07, Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron sun com> wrote:

Pascal:

Note GDM 2.19 supports a X-Gdm-XserverArgs extension to the desktop
files installed to /usr/share/xsessions starting with GDM 2.19.1.

This allows you to specify additional Xserver arguments that only
apply when you pick a specific session in the GDM session menu.
You might be able to use this to get the behavior you want.

Right now you can only supply additional arguments this way, and
not a completely different Xserver command.  If you needed a different
Xserver command, then perhaps another extension could be written
where this could be specified.  Perhaps by specifying the
[server-foo] to use or the Xserver command directly.  This might be a
nice feature to add.

I think making this work in the desktop file is the right way to
specify this sort of thing because adding a menu option to the login
screen would be too confusing for most users.  Picking a different
session if you want slightly different behavior seems to be a more
natural way to communicate to the user what they get.  For example,
picking a session that says "Large Screen GNOME" is more usable
than having a separate session menu that has "Standard", "Terminal",
"Chooser", and "Large Screen" in it.  Also since GDM remembers your
"last session" this makes selecting it a bit nicer.  You just have
to remember to change the selection when you want it to change.

Most users of GDM don't know (and shouldn't need to know) about the
server-foo sections in the GDM configuration file, or how they work.

Brian


> I use a laptop, and somteimes it is connected to a "big screen",
> somtimes not.
>
> What I do now is :
> - in xorg.conf, I declare two "serverlayout"
> - in gdm.conf I created two [server-xxxx] entries using the appropriate
> -layout option to match the xorg.conf
> - gdm always starts 2 X servers, one for each layout
>
> So, when I bootup my laptop, AltF7 / F8 gives me the ability to choose
> the display I 'd like to use.
>
> Matter is : then another x server is always there for nothing. Not a big
> thing though, a small footprint and no CPU whatsoever, but anyway, it
> isn't "clean".
>
> gdmflexiserver provides the ability to choose and start another Xserver
> _once_already_logged_in_
>
> What would be *great* I think, would be to choose the display at the
> login screen.
> -> gdm starts only one xserver (the default one from gdm.conf)
> -> a dropmenu gives the choice between all the [server-xxxx] entries
> (just like gdmflexiserver proposes)
> -> once the choice made,  gdm kills the current X and restarts the one
> chosen.
>
> Thx for your advice on that idea,
> or maybe another way of doing what I'd like to.
>
>
>
>
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