Re: i18n problem in GDM

[George <jirka 5z com>]

On Tue, Mar 09, 2004 at 11:33:12AM +0700, Ross Golder wrote:
> > Hi George.
> >
> > I've noticed a problem wrt i18n in GDM lately. The function
> > gdm_get_last_info() uses last(1) to get the date and time of the last
> > login for the user and just strips off some stuff and presents the date
> > and time in raw format when entering the username. This makes it
> > impossible to do any kind of sane localisation of this string. Did this
> > feature get added recently? I think we should default this setting to
> > off until we can get it localized properly at the very least. Maybe it's
> > possible to set it based on locale? If running in C or en_* use it, if
> > not hide it?
> >
> 
> I'd second that. Nice gimmick, but apart from being i18n'ly broken, it
> also slows down the login process noticably and unnecessarily. Probably
> best defaulted off ;)

It was added to make it compliant with some US govt code (and others
probably, see http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128940) not as a
gimmick.  It's a security measure to allow users to note the last time of
their login before they actually log in.  This is useful since logging in
could run a malicious login script.  In any case it makes it much easier to
spot that someone else is using your account, and apparently such a feature
seems to be required for at least the dod and likely others.

Also there is absolutely no slowdown because of this, if running 'last' slows
down your system, something is horribly wrong with it.  I suppose 'last'
should be translated (I assumed it was actually), in this case we will have
to add our own 'last' to gdm like we have say our own version of 'open'
where we can.

But in any case, it is a security feature, not a gimmick, and one that is in
fact required in some installations.  We can turn it off by default for 2.6
in the config file.

George

-- 
George <jirka@5z.com>
   I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
                       -- Ashleigh Brilliant