Version: Unbekannt (using KDE 3.5.5, Debian Package 4:3.5.5a.dfsg.1-8 (4.0)) Compiler: Target: i486-linux-gnu OS: Linux (i686) release 2.6.18-4-686 I have an application server and one connected thin client. I used the KDM kcontrol module to preselect a user for KDM (kcontrol->System Administration->Login Manager->Convenience->Preselect User->Specify). It works like expected when logging in locally at the application server. But when logging in from the thin client KDM ignores this setting; no user is preselected and the certain user always has to input her name or click on her picture. To increase KDM's WAF (Woman Acceptance Factor) I suggest to fix this bug. :-)
*cough* bug #88339 *cough*
For all people who think that *coughing* alone is not very helpful here is what I did to solve the problem: First I read the comments in Bug #88339 and saw that Oswald recommends to RTFM to understand what is going on here. The problem I had was that kdmrc has no manpage (at least not on Debian, I don't know if other distributions ship one). After reading all comments in Bug #88339 I understood that kdmrc has a hierachical layout which is completely unsupported by kmc, its very own graphical configuration frontend. In Bug #88339 Comment#11 Oswald announced that the problem is somewhat fixed by only changing the settings for the local display. Sorry, but if kmc does not support the hierarchical kdmrc layout anyway, wouldn't the correct fix be to change the settings for ALL displays? So I got my hands dirty and edited kdmrc by hand, which is really a shame for an otherwise excellent and user-centric desktop like KDE. I moved the following lines from the [X-:*-Greeter] section to the [X-*-Greeter] section: --------- DefaultUser=<insert username here> PreselectUser=Default FocusPasswd=true --------- Then Oswald changed the bug summary from KDM ignores "Preselect User" setting when using thin client to ignorant about hierarchical kdmrc layout Sorry, but even though Oswald is a kdm developer, I personally find this behaviour very snobbish and dishonorable in comparison to the otherwise very friendly and professional KDE community...
you should consider other options before taking something personally - you'll notice that there are considerably fewer people after you than you thought. help:kdm (in konq, before you ask) qualifies as a FM to a sufficiently high degree, if you ask me. changing all the incarnations of one settings in kdmrc at once would make the very design of that file sort of pointless. an acceptable compromise would be popping up a warning if more specific setting than the global ones are present and offer the user the option to erase them (all or only the ones that conflict with made changes?). additionally, having only global settings in the default kdmrc might be an option - esp., as xdmcp is disabled by default and one has to poke around in kdmrc to get xdmcp working anyway. this needs some consideration.
> you'll notice that there are considerably fewer people after you than you > thought. Oswald... this EXACTLY meets the definition of snobbish behaviour. Please, try to be a little less smugly. In other respects thank you for the "help:kdm" info. Because Linux programs have so many documentation sources (man, info, /usr/doc/, webpage, build-in, ...), from a users perspective this info is much more helpful than just coughing and a burped RTFM. > an acceptable compromise would be popping up a warning if more specific > setting than the global ones are present and offer the user the option to > erase them (all or only the ones that conflict with made changes?). It depends on the use case and target group you have in mind. Probably the majority of your users don't know about the hierarchical kdmrc layout at all and only see things available in kcm. For this target group it would be much better not to show a warning popup and just use global settings. The small group of users that are aware of the kdmrc internals and use the hierarchy features can not use kcm anyway as it doesn't support this features. So in essence, the warning message would only "scare" people who are not affected by the problem. Thanks again for changing the bug summary to "kcm ignorant about hierarchical kdmrc layout". Only one little additional word completely changes the meaning and prevents misunderstandings and flamewars.
fwiw, this can be considered a sub-issue of now reopened bug #36682. specifically, see the links from comment 9.
*** Bug 158196 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
kdm reached it's end of life with Plasma 4, whose last bugfix release was last August 2015, we are sorry we did not get to fix this bug. We encourage you to try Plasma 5 and its recommended display manager SDDM and it's control module kcm_ssdm. And please do not hesitate to file bugs against it if you find any. Sorry again we could not fix your bug.