

Ubuntu 11.10 To Switch From GDM To LightDM - dkd903
http://digitizor.com/2011/05/12/ubuntu-11-10-lightdm/

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motters
It looks as if Ubuntu is making good progress on the user interface, despite
the current apparent loss of functionality with Unity. Having well designed
and user friendly features is only one part of the equation though. To really
gain popularity they will need to be able to persuade hardware manufacturers
to ship with Ubuntu installed by default, or at least as a dual boot option.
So far this has proven difficult to achieve, and it's hard to buy such a
system via any common distribution channel, such as supermarkets.

~~~
steevdave
Part of this has to do with the cost of Ubuntu. I'm not talking paying
developers to make sure it works on the machine, but the actual cost that
Canonical charges for the ability to use the Ubuntu logo and becoming
"certified"; It's not a trivial amount of money by any stretch.

Anyone can preinstall Ubuntu on a machine and release it, they just can't say
it is Ubuntu specifically or use the logos.

And I don't advocate not paying it or not becoming certified, we are
considering it currently but I can say that management has balked a few times
when we've brought it up has been due to the amount of money required up
front.

~~~
ez77
_Who_ are considering becoming certified?

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steevdave
The company I work for. We are a fairly small ODM, and while I don't want to
say our name I'm not hard to find on the Internet, and I know I bragged about
getting my job (I get paid to work on Linux, still can't believe my luck)

~~~
18pfsmt
I imagine the concern on Canonical's part is that they will field a
significant part of the support flood from new users. Of course, the OEM/ ODM
will probably get the bulk of support traffic (with some falling on the
retailer), the "pilot" from the netbook/ubuntu probably gave them insight. If
they structure the deal correctly, and have an auditable way for the ODM and
Canonical to determine the support costs/ unit sold that could be a way to get
the deal done. Tell those business coworkers of yours to keep iterating on the
deal they are presenting Canonical. I can't believe there's not an equitable
way to get that deal done.

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soofaloofa
I love the Ubuntu team's willingness to move the platform forward. Even if
that means making controversial decisions.

~~~
steevdave
I'm not quite sure how changing the login manager counts as a controversial
decision unless you were meaning just the unity issue. The login manager has
one main job and really shouldn't be a huge convoluted mess of code (from
experience GDM is). I'm excited about this change although I've never heard of
lightdm until this story.

~~~
trafficlight
Reading through the other comments on this post tells me that there is
definitely some controversy over this.

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phaylon
I'm wondering if this means I'll have to jump through hoops _again_ to not
have everybody know what usernames are available on my computer.

~~~
rbanffy
Now would be a great time to file that feature request. LightDM folks have
about 6 months to get it fixed (that is, _if_ it's broken)

~~~
phaylon
Does that mean it doesn't support hiding usernames yet? I'm still trying to
figure that out.

~~~
oozcitak
Did you try setting load-users=false under [UserManager] in /etc/lightdm.conf?

~~~
phaylon
I didn't install anything yet. I just googled for it to find out if it will be
possible, since that was a rather large hassle during the last switch, and
just recently got fixed and is now available as a checkbox option in the
preferences.

I found lots of articles and developer resources, but haven't found the
documentation for it on the web yet. I assume that will change as exposure
increases.

~~~
rbanffy
You can check. I installed lightdm in a couple minutes. Auto-login didn't work
(it was on a shared desktop), there was some terminal keyboard weirdness and I
reverted the change. Running "dpkg-reconfigure lightdm" allowed me to easily
revert back to gdm.

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pdelgallego
I think this is the path that Ubuntu should follow, replace current pieces of
software with lighter and smaller solutions.

You can always replace them with more advances packages through apt-get.

~~~
azakai
> I think this is the path that Ubuntu should follow, replace current pieces
> of software with lighter and smaller solutions.

I fully agree, but am not sure this is an example of that. The article says
LightDM uses WebKit. Loading an entire html rendering engine for a login
manager seems like overkill.

I guess this explains why LightDM is smaller than GDM in code size - but is it
smaller in total size when including all necessary libraries?

Now, some of this might be offset if you have WebKit loaded anyhow as a shared
library. This seems unlikely, though,

1\. This is the login manager - it's before you load your desktop and web
browser. (It might save loading it later though.) 2\. The default browser in
Ubuntu, Firefox, is not WebKit based. Neither is Opera for that matter (but it
is not as popular). 3\. The most popular WebKit based browser, Chrome, bundles
its own version of WebKit - so there would be no sharing anyhow.

~~~
steevdave
Empathy (the default IM client) uses webkit to render it's themes. It is quite
likely to be a shared library. On natty, webkit is fairly hefty at 24MB but it
doesn't take Empathy long to load at all. And by the time your login manager
has started /usr is already mounted, assuming you are not using their default
partitioning which is one huge partition.

~~~
azakai
It would be interesting to know how many users use Empathy. I don't myself,
and maybe I'm not representative, but I don't think it is that many - Pidgin
seems more popular among people I know.

I don't follow the /usr bit - what does mounting /usr have to do with loading
or not loading WebKit?

WebKit is around 24MB, which is as you say quite hefty, but it's even worse as
it depends on some other libraries - sqlite, libpng, etc.

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sciurus
The blueprint (how features are proposed for ubuntu) is at
[https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-
ligh...](https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-lightdm)

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count
Does LightDM have all the support GDM does for non-user/password login
capabilities, warning banners, etc?

~~~
crocowhile
PAM is the standard and it doesn't get more secure, flexible and expandable
than PAM. LightDM is PAM compliant so I am not expecting any trouble.

~~~
count
PAM is the standard, yes, but the DM has to support different PAM features
(such as smart-card login).

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tga
Ubuntu choosing a different default display manager is hardly newsworthy,
would you seriously discuss Windows or OS X swapping some code behind the
login window?

I would be more interested in hearing about Canonical putting lots of thought
and their weight behind an improved desktop experience developed independently
of the current looks and functionality of Windows, especially since for the
moment they are _the_ GNU-Linux-on-the-desktop company.

~~~
tree_of_item
It's newsworthy when that code is part of the open source community, there are
political implications of the switch, and Ubuntu is part of a larger effort to
get more people to use GNU/Linux.

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nodata
It's fantastic that Ubuntu is pushing to improve stuff, but it worries me the
amount of old stable code they are ripping out.

~~~
mgunes
GDM is not a good example of "old stable code" that's being ripped out on the
initiative of Ubuntu, since it has recently seen a rewrite upstream, among the
reasons for which was bit rot.

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kijinbear
I hated it when Ubuntu switched from Gnome to Unity by default, but I like
this move away from GDM. If there's one thing in Ubuntu that's less
customizable (in terms of look-and-feel) than Unity, it's GDM.

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makmanalp
While it looks like Ubuntu is throwing caution in the wind in many respects, I
like that this is bringing attention to overlooked projects and attempting to
clean up some old messes.

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ldng
Matthew Garrett opinion on the matter :
<http://www.advogato.org/person/mjg59/diary/296.html>

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known
I like mingetty <http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-546544.html>

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akent
Surely GDM will still be available as a package though...? If so, does the
choice of default login manager really matter?

~~~
IgorPartola
Ubuntu is all about the ease of use. How do you explain to your non-technical
wife, for example, what a login manager is, what it does and why you'd want a
better, lighter one? I like this change. I wish they'd switch away from Gnome
entirely and go with something like XFCE by default. I want my DE to take up
as little resources as possible out of the box.

~~~
joshfinnie
Unfortunately, there are too many standard programs out there that need Gnome
to run. I can't see Ubuntu using XFCE but still requiring Gnome installed; for
newbies that would not be worth the effort. XFCE has a steeper learning curve
than Gnome for people coming from Windows.

~~~
riffraff
does this still apply with gnome3? it does not seem very close to a windows
experience to me.

