Re: [gdm-list] GDM 2.26 themes vs earlier GDM themes

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Larry:

> In an earlier version of GDM, I was able to select the GDM theme to use
> for gdm greeter. I could even select the face browser.

GDM 2.21 is a rewrite, and later versions do not support gdmgreeter
style XML themes.

> I have upgraded to gnome 2.26, and I can't find the tool/interface to
> control my gdm greeter.

GDM 2.21 and later also no longer supports a login GUI configuration
editor.  Note that most GDM configuration is now stored in the "gdm"
user's GConf settings, so you could use gconf-editor or gconftool-2
to edit the configuration settings.

I would recommend reading the "Configuration" setting of the
documentation to understand what configuration options are now
available:

  http://library.gnome.org/admin/gdm/2.26/

> Was this functionality removed, or not implemented with the new gdm
> rewrite, or did I screw up in my upgrade?

When GDM was re-written, some features were not ported.  If someone
were interested to invest the time to add support for gdmsetup or better
configuration or theming, then I am sure this would be welcome.  If
there is not already a bug in http://bugzilla.gnome.org in the "gdm"
category about the issue, then you can file a bug.  If there is already
a bug report, you can join the discussion about how to address the
issue.

Here is a bug for gdmsetup being missing:

   http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=553250

I do not think anybody has yet filed a bug about gdmgreeter themes
no longer being supported.  Not sure if this means people don't care
about this feature or not.

> I thought was able to go into System->Administration and select the
> theme greeter, but I can't find it.

As I say above, this feature just has not yet been ported to the latest
GDM.

> Can someone tell me if I'm doing something wrong, or tell me what is the
> name of the binary that I can execute to select the GUI tool to change
> the GDM themes?

The new GDM does support some configuration options to affect the
appearance of the login window.  You can use GConf settings, for
example, to set a background image via the standard
gnome-settings-daemon GConf configuration options.  However, it does
not support gdmgreeter-style XML themes.

Note that libgnomecanvas is being deprecated from the GNOME stack.
The old GDM used this to support gdmgreeter style themes.  It would
probably be necessary to rewrite it to use something like clutter
or goocanvas if we wanted to port it to the new GDM.

Brian