GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 524895
gdm theme defaultization dialog
Last modified: 2008-03-31 17:58:58 UTC
If I'm logging into gdm in the most common mode, I don't set the desktop session (kde, gnome etc) at all. But if I'm changing the session, then after I've logged in I get a dialog box asking whether my recent choice should be made default. This is bad in many ways, but among other things it forces the user to reset his default *every time* he changes his session. This is conceptually broken, because it is only based on experience with a product that a user will, upon reflection, make it their default. Forcing this choice up front is therefore illogical, aside from being very annoying. Full rationale here: http://www.matusiak.eu/numerodix/blog/index.php/2008/03/28/gdm-sloppiness/ Suggested fix: In the session change dialog add an option to set the default session rather than untimely interrogating the user. Other information:
You "it forces the user to reset his default *every time* he changes a session". This isn't quite how GDM works. Instead, if you try to log into session that isn't your "default", then it pops up a dialog asks you if you want to make it your default. If you say "no", then it doesn't change your default session. In other words, it doesn't force you to change your default session. You can say "No". That said, I can respect that it would be annoying to have this pop-up all the time for a user who regularly logs into different sessions. The current dialog assumes that the user tends to log into one session most frequently and that logging into other sessions is rare. Perhaps not true for all users. Perhaps the dialog could have a checkbox saying "I don't want to see this dialog again" so after you make the choice the first time, it doesn't ask again. GDM saves your default session/language info in your $HOME/.dmrc. It might be nicer if it were enhanced to support a configuration option that specify that my default session choice is really my default, I never want to change it so don't pop up the dialog ever. Just keep the default the same even if I manually choose to log into other sessions. Is this what you are asking for, or something else? If you are really seeing behavior that does force you to change your default session each time you log into a different session, then this would be a bug, I'd think.
It doesn't force me to _change_ my default, but it does force me to reset it. So if my default is gnome and I change the session to kde, I have to explicitly say "I change my default" or "I don't change my default". This decision should not be necessary for every login, basically this option is asked for at the wrong time. Btw the focus is on "Change my default" as the screenshot shows. Messing with configuration files changes nothing, this has to be a gui choice. The point is that if I want to change my session n times then I probably want to change my default n/5 times. Because that's how often defaults get changed. Therefore it is patently incorrect to force this decision on the user everytime the session is changed.
Thanks for explaining. I am not sure that I agree with your usage of the term "reset" since the configuration file isn't actually updated if you say "I don't want to change my default". However, I do understand that you find the pop-up annoying. I do agree that some users probably want to change their session regularly but do not want to be bothered by seeing this pop-up each time they pick a non-default choice. Such users probably want to define their default once and be done with it. You are right that there are currently no configuration options to control whether this pop-up is shown. I was just suggesting some ways the code could be enhanced to improve the usability. 1) Add a configuration option to the .dmrc file to specify that the dialog should not be displayed 2) Add a checkbox to the pop-up dialog so the user could specify that they don't want to see the dialog in the future. The two options could obviously work together. Other suggestions would be welcome. Since GDM 2.21/2.22 is a rewrite, it probably makes most sense to fix this issue in SVN head rather than fixing it in the old 2.20 branch.
The option of changing the default should not go away. It should just be presented differently. Disabling this dialog without including the option anywhere else doesn't solve the problem. The most obvious way to solve it is to have a checkbox on the "change session" popup that says "Make this my default". Thus you give the user the option to change the default without getting in the way.
This is already handled quite a bit differently in gdm 2.21. It never pops up a dialog ever. Instead, the way it works is it shows the session/language in combo boxes in the bottom panel of the screen. This combo box shows up when the greeter is waiting for the user to enter password (or swipe finger or whatever). There's no concept of a "user default". Instead the combo box is preselected to whatever the user logged in with last. If they want to change it, they can of course, and whatever they change it to will be what gets preselected the next time around. I think it works a lot better than the 2.20 way.
That is a solution indeed. Glad to hear it's already been fixed.