Re: [gdm-list] GDM status.

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

William:

> GDM trunk should be included in GNOME 2.24.  A release from the GDM
> 2.22 branch was shipped in Fedora 9 and has been performing well.

I think it is great that the new GDM 2.22 is performing well on
Fedora 9.  I also agree that the latest GDM SVN head code is in
much better shape than when the GNOME release team decided not to
include the GDM rewrite with the 2.22 release.  For the most common
use-case (a single-display desktop user), it does a good job of
meeting the needs of a display manager.

> The items on the to-do list are not blockers.

I think the following issues should be considered:

+ The GDM daemon does not yet support any configuration.  It seems
  that some configuration (such as XDMCP configuration options)
  would need to be supported for GDM to be useful.

+ GDM doesn't support multi-display.  This means that distros that
  want to support users with terminal-server, thin client, or other
  novel setups will not be able to migrate to the new GDM rewrite until
  this is addressed.

+ The new GDM rewrite doesn't contain any documentation.  GUI
  configuration, integration hooks like the Init/PreSession/PostSession
  script, how to configure ConsoleKit so it works properly with GDM, how
  accessibility works, etc. are probably topics that should be
  discussed.

+ The XDMCP chooser is not yet available from the login screen.

+ gdmsetup is not yet supported

+ gdmgreeter XML style themes are not supported

Perhaps the plan is that the new GDM will just be less functional in
some of these ways (such as lack of gdmgreeter XML style themes or
lack of gdmsetup).  That is okay, but the release team should probably
help decide if any of these issues (or other issues on the ToDo list)
are blockers or not.

> During this cycle, much of the work related to improving the GDM
> (login/logout) and overall user experience is happening at other
> levels of the stack.  Some of this I'll discuss at GUADEC this year.

I am looking forward to the presentation.

Brian