request for enhancement: gdmsetup

[Erik Harrison]

Hey Tony,

On 11/27/06, Anthony Ewell <aewell at gbis.com> wrote:
> In other words, you would include
> "the good ones".
>

This discussion has gone on probably a little longer than it should
already, but I might as well try to clarify.

The only non-xfce related button in the settings manager is
xscreensaver. Xscreensaver is a service that is started by Xfce. In
other words, it is an assumption built into Xfce that xscreensaver is
installed. Back in the days before the desktop menu autodiscovered
installed applications, we added a applet to the settings manager to
run the xscreensaver dialog.

To make this very clear - we were using a service, and then needed to
provide a way to access its config.

Xfce doesn't use GDM in any way. A recent, highly unscientific,
informal mailing list poll indicates that a majority of users don't
even use a display manager (a display manger is a graphical log in
prompt for X - GDM is one). They simply start Xfce from the command
line.

So, it is not a matter of "good ones". We don't use GDM at all, there
are no internal assumptions that even an application like GDM is
running, and the one source of data we have indicates that only a
minority of Xfce's users also use GDM.

Of course writing the damn thing is trivial. However, fielding a dozen
complaints a month from users who don't know that gdmsetup is a
non-Xfce application is not. On top of setting a precedent to write a
wrapper for every third part config utility under the sun.

There is however a group of people who perhaps should write such a
wrapper. If your distribution uses GDM by default, uses Xfce as it's
desktop, then it is trivial for them to write the wrapper. It would
make your experience using their distro better.

So, if you still consider this to be a boon, please file a bug in your
distros bug tracker.

Thanks for wading your way through this point by point, I know you're
well intentioned, and appreciate your constructive comment.

>     By they way, you do good work.  XFce is a great
> piece of code.

I speak for everybody @xfce.org (and myself) when I say thanks.

>
> Many thanks,
> --Tony
> _______________________________________________
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> http://www.xfce.org
>


-- 
Erik

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