gdm changes and the live cd

[Matthias Clasen]

On Sat, 2011-03-05 at 02:57 +0100, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> Am Freitag, den 04.03.2011, 18:25 -0500 schrieb Matthias Clasen: 
> > There are some changes in GDM and GNOME3 that affect our live cd setup,
> > and will require some changes:
> > 
> > GDM no longer has a keyboard or language chooser. They were mainly added
> > to cater to livecd must-choose-before login scenarios, but they proved
> > to be really problematic ever since we added them, since they cause a
> > conflict between multiple configuration sources (system keyboard layout
> > vs stored user configuration vs login screen choice, etc). 
> 
> What exactly were the problems here? User configuration overwrites
> system configuration and the choice from the login overwrites the user's
> setting since it is more recent. There may have been technical problems
> under the hood, but I think GDM solved them very well and the users were
> happy. They will be way unhappier with what you are proposing.

There's really quite a few problems. 

gdm offered only a limited choice of a single layout with no variants,
which was sufficient for entering your password, but then some people
were upset that they had to select their keyboard layout again in the
session, so we made the gdm choice transfer in the session. That in turn
made people upset who have a complicated, multi-layout or variant-using
setup in the session and did not want that overwritten. Then we made it
so that the gdm layout is only added to the existing session
configuration, then we made further tweaks ... and still, it was never
right.

Ultimatively, 99% of all passwords out there consist of ascii only, so
why not keep it simple and forego all this crazyness ?

> > Without these
> > choosers, it doesn't really make sense anymore to stop at the login
> > screen with a time login, and we should consider to just autologin
> > directly to the user session. The session will start in English, and
> > users who need a different language will have to select the language in
> > System Settings > Region and re-login. Keyboard configuration is less
> > problematic, since it can be changed without requiring a re-login.
> 
> Only ~ 40% of our users are using en_US. Forcing the majority to log in
> to a language they don't use and perhaps not even understand seems very
> drastic to me.

This is really only an issue for the live cd, though. In a regular
installation, it is just a one-time annoyance. You log in once, select
your language, and you are all set. Next time you log in, you get your
language right away.