Re: [gdm-list] Running a BackgroundProgram in GDM 2.20

[Fahd Kasri <fahd kasri gmail com>]

Thanks for the help I finally got it working. Here's what I did:

 - Added this line to /etc/gdm/Init/Default (right before exit 0) : sudo su -c "xscreensaver -nosplash" gdm &

 - Changed the gdm user's shell to /bin/rbash (it was /bin/false). I'm not sure this is safe.

Fahd

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com> wrote:

Fahd:

If you are having trouble getting BackgroundProgram to work, then note
that you can start up programs in the GDM Init script
(/etc/gdm/Init/Default).  This script is run as root by the GDM daemon
after it starts the Xserver but before it starts the login GUI, so you
can use it to launch applications.  If you want your application to run
as the "gdm" user (or any other user), you'll need to run the command
via su or something.

Also note that if you launch programs you need to launch them in the
background like this:

gnome-terminal &

If you leave off the "&", the Init script will hang and the login GUI
will not show up until the gnome-terminal program exits.

So that's another way you might be able to get the behavior you want.

I am not sure what scripting you need to run to launch xscreensaver
properly.  Also, I think xscreensaver can be run in a way that prints
debug messages, so it might be useful to review any problems it
might report.  But this is probably not the best forum to get help with
xscreensaver.

I'm trying to get xscreensaver run at the GDM login screen. I'm using
Hardy (I know, it's old, but I can't upgrade the distro on this
machine). I've tried everything that I could find (Google, manpages...),
but nothing seems to work. What I think I'm supposed to do is add this
to gdm.conf:

|BackgroundProgram=xscreensaver -nosplash
RunBackgroundProgramAlways=true

And add a .xscreensaver config file in /var/lib/gdm, but when I restart
gdm, xscreensaver doesn't start.

I've tried changing the gdm user's shell to /bin/bash (it was
/bin/false), but that didn't help either.

/var/log/gdm/:0.log doesn't show an attempt to start xscreensaver.

Any suggestions? Is this a bug that was fixed in later versions?

If you want to debug what might be wrong with BackgroundProgram, you
could edit your /etc/gdm/custom.conf file and turn on debugging
by adding a line that says "Enable=true" after the line that says
"[debug]" so it looks like this:

[debug]
Enable=true

Then restart GDM or reboot, and review the gdm-related messages at
the end of your syslog (/var/log/messages or /var/adm/messages
depending on your system).  They might highlight what the problem
could be.  It could be something simple to diagnose.

Brian