Re: [gdm-list] Proposed interface changes

["Dan Nicholson" <dbn lists gmail com>]

Hi,

On 3/20/07, Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron sun com> wrote:
> 3) /var/lib/log/gdm and /var/lib/gdm.
>
>     Sun's ARC community has complained that /var/lib is a stupid
>     place to put files, and that the semantics of /var/lib are ill
>     defined.  GDM is one of the only programs that uses this
>     directory.
>
>     I'd like to move the following 2 directories.  Note these are
>     both already configurable in the GDM configuration, so any
>     client program that accesses these should already be first getting
>     the configuration key to know what directory to find them.
>
>     /var/lib/gdm
>
>        This directory contains xauth files, and is typically only
>        used by GDM directly.  This directory is associated with the
>        ServAuthDir key in the configuration file.
>
>        I recommend we move /var/lib/gdm     to /var/gdm/auth
>
>        Note the Fast User Switch applet does *not* use this directory
>        it instead calls AUTH_LOCAL and uses XauFileName() to get the
>        key.

I'm not sure it's really FHS friendly to introduce a new directory in
the /var hierarchy. Personally, I feel like /var/lib/gdm is a fine
place as this is described as "State data for packages and subsystems
(optional)" and /var/lib/xdm is already recommended by the FHS.

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEVARHIERARCHY
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#SPECIFICOPTIONS23

But you could also argue for /var/{cache,spool,run}/gdm. I would
prefer if gdm didn't create it's own space under /var and instead used
one of the existing hierarchies.

>        I recommend we move /var/lib/log/gdm to /var/log/gdm or /var/gdm.

Same as above, /var/log/gdm seems to fit the FHS better, IMO. I've
been hacking the gdm build files for a long time to separate the
default log location to /var/log/gdm.

> 4) Might be nice to add some newer GDM themes from art.gnome.org
>     into the GDM default codebase, and perhaps change the default
>     theme to something more modern.  Any ideas?

This one's not new, but it's nice and clean and Tango-ized. I think
they may have used it on Debian for a while.

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/teams/art.gnome.org/themes/gdm_greeter/GDM-Tango.tar.gz

Keep up the good work.

--
Dan