MDM for Debian
==============

"I get ugly fonts"
------------------

In the past, as a quick workaround, MDM imposed a 96 DPI settings by
passing "-dpi 96" to the X server on startup.  This is a bad idea has
there's no reason to override standard DPI detection mechanisms for all
screens which might or might not be 96 DPI screens.

DPI should be computed automatically based on the information on your
screen that Xorg gets; ideally, Xorg would get the DPI right, but you
can help Xorg by configuring it with your exact screen properties.
  If it's too complicated, you may still get the old behavior by
setting:
    [server-Standard]
    command=/usr/bin/X -dpi 96 -audit 0
in your mdm.conf.  See the defaults.conf file to see how it's configured
by default.


Face Browser
------------

If you enable the face browser in /etc/mdm/mdm.conf, mdm will look
for face files (any gtk+-supported image format; see
/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.2.0/loaders or similar for a list of installed
loaders) in ~/.gnome2/photo or <greeter/GlobalFaceDir>/<loginname>,
whichever is found first.  Note that there is no filename extension
for either location.  greeter/GlobalFaceDir is set in
/etc/mdm/mdm.conf


Screen Saver
------------

If you want a screensaver running with the greeter, you should use the
BackgroundProgram option in /etc/mdm/mdm.conf, or make sure if you start
a gtk program in the PreSession script, that it is started with the mdm
userid, and not root


Secure System Menu
------------------

Debian versions 2.4.1.6-1 through 2.8.0.6-2 featured a
"SecureSystemMenu" option in mdm.conf, that would require the root
password to be entered for the reboot, shutdown, and suspend options
on the system menu.  Some time after MDM 2.4.1.6 was released, other parts
of the GNOME desktop began talking to the mdm daemon, so that one could
reboot or shutdown without having to return to the mdm login screen.  These
programs didn't support this option, and would have needed changes to do so.
With mdm 2.13.0.10, the patch broke and would need a lot of debugging to get
working again, and other programs talking to the daemon (cinnamon-session) would
still have to be patched to support the option, or mdm patched to ignore
them when they don't do authentication.  If anyone really wants this
functionality back, I suggest working with upstream so it can be integrated
into all the parts of the GNOME desktop that it would now impact.


Translation of the Debconf templates
------------------------------------

A note to translators about the debconf templates -- translations
should be sent to the xdm package.  I don't use gettext-based
templates in the source, because I sync to the ones in the xdm
package, and don't have any that are not shared.