ANNOUNCE: GDM 2.3.90.0, the "Horribly Broken" release

[George <jirka 5z com>]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORK

(Note for those that don't want to read further: if you want a stable
 gdm, use the 2.2.5.3 version that came out yesterday)

Well, it feels like it's time to make a release of the gnome 2.0 port of
gdm.  It might actually work, and then again it may not.  It seems to log
me in and not erase my harddrive in the process.  Remember this is something
that runs mostly as root, so do you really feel comfortable running an
unstable version?  Of course you do.  You live on the edge, and probably
have file corruption for running the newest development kernel anyway.

So this is an UNSTABLE release, using UNSTABLE libraries, and of course
there are no rpms.  Use 2.2.5.3 if you want something that pretends to
be stable.

And now for the standard part of the release announcement:

Ahh, so you have no clue what gdm is?  Well if you've read this far ... let's
not get into that.  Gdm is GNOME Display Manager, the little daemon that lets
you log in to your computer.  It allows xdmcp multiple login displays,
selection of languages, multiple login sessions and generally is much cooler
then any xdm clone out there, mostly cuz it isn't an xdm clone to begin with.
I mean heck, it's even got a graphical configurator, so you don't have to use
the command line to hose your system anymore.

News:
=====

Highlights of 2.3.90.0:

- All changes up to 2.2.5.3

- Ported to GNOME 2, still uses some deprecated widgets and such,
  but it should be fully functional

- A little bit of code restructuring and cleanup

- Add option to preserve LD_ variables to allow easy debugging

- Docs use XML and bunch of other doc updates (Trevor Curtis)

- Removed font for welcome message, the welcome message now supports
  standard pango xml-like markup

- Failsafe gui dialogs are pure gtk now and do not require an exec

- Translation updates mostly overlap 2.2.5.3.  It's also probably
  all broken now, I think we need to convert to utf8 or some such

Note:  Gdm2 was originally written by Martin K. Petersen <mkp mkp net>, and
is now maintained by the Queen of England.  Although when she's not answering
her email I usually cover for her.

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

Note3:  Distributors, packagers.  Please, PLEASE use the standard Gnome
script when setting things up as gnome, or at least equivalently working
scripts.  It should never be OK to just exec gnome-session, that is
considered bad form.  The script needs to read (if available) the ~/.gnomerc
and otherwise read the <sysconfdir>/gdm/gnomerc file.  This allows users and
administrators to setup custom startup for gnome.

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

http://download.gnome.org/GNOME/pre-gnome2/sources/gdm/

Have fun,

George

PS:  So apparently you can't now eat potato chips made with help oil,
read: http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/20011209edann1209p5.asp
I thought this is a more rediculous thing then a PS I would write.  Why
is it that whenever I think I've seen people in important places do stupid
stuff, they pleasantly suprise me by doing something even stupider.

-- 
George <jirka 5z com>
   Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, 
   but most times he will pick himself up and carry on.
                       -- Winston Churchill