GDMSetup

Summary

Ubuntu 9.10 introduced a new GDM version without a GUI setup utility. A minimal setup tool was developed for Ubuntu to allow configuration of automatic user login. This specification is for the extra configuration items that should be added to this tool.

Release Note

This release has improved login screen configuration and now allows configuration of the following options:

  • xsplash wallpaper management
  • select userlist or prompted login
  • select automatic, timed or manual login
  • set the GTK theme and Icon theme
  • ...

Rationale

There are a number of GDM features that users want to configure simply.

User stories

Amy wants to make her login screen match her desktop and sets the login background and theme to match her own.

Brian is the only user on his computer. He sets the default login to him.

Chris administers a laboratory of computers. He disables the face browser as there are too many users to list them all.

Debbie uses her laptop in the library. She disables the login sound so as not to disturb other people.

Design

The "Login Screen" tool will provide the following options:

  • Default user
  • Login delay
  • Face browser toggle
  • Guest session toggle
  • Login mute
  • Background image or color
  • GTK+ theme and icon theme
  • Default session
  • Security options? (fingerprint, show dots, ...)

Implementation

I developed a simple implementation (see here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8518160 ) with a couple of these extra options available which spawned https://launchpad.net/gdm2setup after Growlf got involved. Feel free to feedback on the design/style and hopefully this could serve as a decent starting point for Lucid (unless something else has appeared in the meantime?)

Migration

New features are being added, existing features will continue to work as before.

Test/Demo Plan

Check all the user stories can be completed with the updated tool.

CategorySpec

DesktopTeam/Specs/Lucid/GDMSetup (last edited 2010-02-20 05:54:37 by 218)