This would be really handy.

TRevor, what about his feature ?
could you update us?

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URL: 
http://bugs.debian.org/125929

GDM should not have a feature to restart the GDM2 daemon.  There is no reason
the GDM daemon should ever need to be restarted.  gdmsetup can be used for
changing settings and these settings take effect immediately.  If there are
options in gdm.conf that are not supported in gdmsetup that you need, then that
is a different bug. 

Changing the synopsis to reflect the other feature you request.  Indeed, GDM2
should support the ability to drop out of X and allow console login.

One reason to have a restart option for gdm would be if you changed xserver
configurations such as the number of servers to run, which display to run on,
the commandline to use, etc.  I know we can have the gdm daemon restart the
xserver though.  Perhaps this should be the proper option... "Restart X" instead
of restart gdm (although to a user it doesn't really make a diference which is
restarted it's the same result, a restarted X server with new settings).

Also is anyone still working on this?  If Trevor isn't, I may go ahead and look
at implementing the "Switch to Conole Login" option.

I guess I don't really understand the need for restarting the Xserver.  If you
are editing the Xserver configuration, then you must be doing this as root
anyway.  What's the big deal of just running gdm-restart to restart GDM and the
Xserver?  Wouldn't adding a new menu option (or whatever) just confuse most
users who don't need to know anything about the Xserver?

It would be cool if you fixed GDM2 so that it supports console login mode.

I'm kind of the mindframe that that seems about the same as asking why bother
having a gdmsetup when you can just edit the config file.  It's just so people
can point and click using easy GUIs instead of running commands.

And I wasn't really planning to support console login mode under gdm2, more of
just allowing a user to drop out of gdm to a console view gui interface.

I'm not sure what gdmsetup has to do with supporting console mode.  We're
talking about a feature that lets the user select something that drops them to a
true console mode with no Xserver running.  

Some users really feel that dropping to console is useful, especially on those
OS that do not support virtual terminals (such as Solaris).  Some programs (like
for configuring your devices on Solaris) need to be run from the console.  So on
Solaris either virtual terminals will need to get supported by the kernel, or
console login will need to be supported by GDM for it to become the default
Solaris login program. 

But I know George has always felt that this feature should really be unneeded. 
Dropping to console is really better managed by the kernel and anything the DM
program does to support this is just a hacky workaround.

this is useful for lots of reasons.  First and foremost what if I want to just use the console?  

CDE and KDE login managers have this functionality.  It seems ackward that I have to run into a failsafe terminal, and run gdm-stop to just pop into console mode. For example I was doing some heavy compiling and coding and wanted to use all resources for this task.  No need to have gnome running while doing this.  

Seem to me that a guru feature. For a normal user, it could be confusing and awkward. And imagine your know-noting-secretary wondering what is this little functionality and press the magic button. His/her logging screen will disappear to give a console logging. Then she/he'll call the tech to bring back his/her logging screen back with fancy graphics.

May seem like a rant, but if gnome aim to be a simple UI then gdm should not have this kind of feature. 

As a dev, i have no problem switching to a vt and shutdown gdm/xdm to do a ressource hungry task. 

If you insist to implement it, then i suggest doing it require root access.

Steve, thanks for your comments.  But, you might notice that this enhancement request has been open since 2002 and still nobody seems in a rush to implement a solution.

I do agree that it does not make sense to show a feature like this by default (to drop to console login), but users should be able to configure GDM to work the way that they want.  You'll notice that there are already many features in the GDM configuration which probably don't make sense for the know-nothing-secretary use case.

The need for this feature is mostly to better support OS distros that do not support virtual terminal (VT) switching, which is a more elegant way to get to console login, if needed.  Solaris is the only OS that I know has this issue, and I also know the Solaris kernel people are working to implement this feature so it will work in the future.  Once VT's gets implemented in Solaris, the need to do this enhancement request may go away (unless there are other OS's that have the same problem, or if people using older versions of Solaris really want this feature bad enough to code a solution).

Also note that gdmsetup now supports a lot of new features and users can specify what displays are managed in the GUI now, and the Xserver command to run.  So many of the features that would have previously required a manual gdm-restart now should not require this and just be dynamically handled via gdmsetup.

closing this out.

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug.
However, you are using a version that is too old and not supported anymore. GNOME developers are no longer working on that version, so unfortunately there will not be any bug fixes for the version that you use.

By upgrading to a newer version of GNOME you could receive bug fixes and new functionality. You may need to upgrade your Linux distribution to obtain a newer version of GNOME.
Please feel free to reopen this bug if the problem still occurs with a newer version of GNOME.