Gnome 2.28 Changes

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Tips on GNOME 2.28 changes
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Introduction

12-Oct-09 - Gnome 2.28 is published to the [extra] repo and is as such part of the latest Arch. The purpose of this page is to document some differences between 2.26 and 2.28 as well as show some tweaks/fixes people have identified along the way. This page is not meant to overlap with the existing Gnome or Gnome Tips articles. Please confine the content here to specifically address changes/tips unique to Gnome 2.28.

Unresolved Issues

The following are unresolved issues affecting Gnome 2.28. Please only post a summary, link to forum thread, and optionally a bug report link to keep this section tidy.

Note: Please browse to and vote on the bug reprots to help the devs see that the issue is affects other users too!

GDM 2.28 prevents shutdown daemons from being displayed

Summary: System shutdown does not display the daemons screen indicating progress of various daemons contained in /etc/rc.shutdown.

Gnome 2.28 adds a 10-15 sec delay when starting a gnome-session for the first time

Summary: There is a 10-15 sec pause from the time a user logs in to Gnome (gdm or xinit). This delay is only present the first time a user log in. Subsequent times (logout then login again without rebooting) are much shorter, on the order of 1-2 seconds. For more info, see the discussion thread.

Partially Resolved Issues

Gnome 2.28 occasionally crashes back to gdm login screen

For no apparent reason, Gnome goes blank and the user is kicked down to the gdm login screen. All running programs die in this process. It is the equivalent of restarting gdm (/etc/rc.d/gdm restart)!

Link to discussion thread: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=82308

Partial Workaround - Downgrade gdm

Until this can get sorted out, the easiest way to avoid instabilities with gdm is to simply downgrade gdm back to the older stable package. This has no ill effects and brings back stability.

Users may have the package in their /var/cache/pacman/pkg directory. If not, the schlinix.org repo holds many outdated packages for just such a case.

x64_86 users:

# pacman -U http://www.schlunix.org/archlinux/extra/os/x86_64/gdm-2.20.10-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz

i686 users:

# pacman -U http://www.schlunix.org/archlinux/extra/os/i686/gdm-2.20.10-2-i686.pkg.tar.gz

You can now use gdmsetup to configure it as before! Add the following to /etc/pacman.conf to ignore gdm it until it gets fixed.

IgnorePkg   = gdm

Resolved Issues with Fixes

Granting Shutdown/Restart Privileges to Users

If one user is logged in to Gnome and another user logs in (switched users) the 2nd user cannot shutdown or restart the box. The following window pops-up, "System policy prevents stopping the system when other users are logged in." The user is now challenged for the superuser password.

Discussion Thread: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=641993

The fix for this is to:

# nano /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/shutdown.pkla
[system shutdown privs]
Identity=unix-group:users
Action=org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.stop-multiple-users
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes
# nano /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/restart.pkla
[system restart privs]
Identity=unix-group:users
Action=org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.restart-multiple-users
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes

Finally, restart hal and any of your users in the 'users' group will have the ability to shutdown or restart your system without the root password and whether others are logged into the box or not.

For more on this, see the manpage for pklocalauthority.

Logout of Gnome Hangs for 10-15 sec

There is a bug affecting the logout speed that introduces a lag of 10-15 sec when a user attempts to log out of a Gnome session. The cause of the lag is the gnome-keyring-daemon in 2.28. A patch has been released but not applied to the Arch package as of 12-Oct-09. The easy way to remove the lag is to simply disable the gnome-keyring-daemon. System >> Preferences >> Startup >> Uncheck GKD.

Source: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=595698

This issue has been resolved in the latest version of gnome-keyring package update on 21-Oct-09, version 2.28.1-1.

Missing Icons in System Menu

The default setting under 2.28 is NOT to display the usual icons under the System menu. They are easily enabled Look under System >> Preferences >> Appearance >> Interface.

Universal Accessibility Icon Stuck in Panel

Some users have reported that the Universal Accessibility icon is displayed on their panel with no way of removing it.

System >> Preferences >> Keyboard >> Accessibility >> Uncheck the Accessibility features can be toggled with keyboard shortcuts check box.

If this option becomes rechecked after logging out and back in, causing the icon to reappear, there's this workaround on the Ubuntu Forums.

Synaptics Touchpad

Method 1

gconftool-2 --set --type boolean /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/tap_to_click true

Method 2

Tap Buttons doesn't work after upgrading. Look under System >> Preferences >> Mouse >> Touchpad tab.

You may need to install gsynaptics from the community repo. It will then come up as System >> Preferences >> Touchpad >> Tappig tab.

Volume Manager

NTFS volumes are no longer mounted with the ntfs-3g driver, but with the kernel ntfs driver which only allows read-only access. One workaround is to create a symbolic link to the ntfs-3g binary as mentioned on the HAL page:

# ln -s /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g /sbin/mount.ntfs

Another workaround is to add an entry in /etc/fstab for each NTFS partition, explicitly specifying ntfs-3g as the filesystem type. For example,

/dev/sdb1   /media/data    ntfs-3g    defaults    0    0

Configuring gdm 2.28

There have been some significant changes to gdm in the 2.28 release. Notably, the absence of a GUI to configure the app. Fortunately, there are some work arounds.

Method 1

As root, invoke the following command which should allow you to change various aspects of GDM through a GUI.

# gksudo -u gdm dbus-launch gnome-appearance-properties

In the case you have no sudo installed:

# gksu -u gdm dbus-launch gnome-appearance-properties

Account not available

If you become messages,like "This account is currently not available.", do following:

# cp /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.old
# vipw

or if you prefer nano:

# nano /etc/passwd

Find gdm user line, and on the end of the line change "/sbin/nologin" to "/bin/bash", save. Now, execute command above to change login. Since normally gdm user should never login, it is highly recommended to restore passwd back after changing gdm screen,i.e. do:

# cp /etc/passwd.old /etc/passwd

And after successful testing:

# rm /etc/passwd.old
Note: Some users forget to make sure they are root before they try this.

Method 2

You can change some aspects of GDM from the by changing configuration keys. They are summarized below. Acknowledgment to user wayne_cat of the ubuntu forums for this information.

You can open a GUI for editing values with the following command or you can edit values on the shell.

# sudo -u gdm dbus-launch gconf-editor

Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7576112&postcount=365

Note: Although the following commands use sudo, you actually need to run them as root! ("su -" works)

Changing Background Image

Gnome configuration value:

/desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename

Show current background image:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --get /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename

Set a new background picture:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type string /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /data/pictures/Grassy.jpg

Alternatively, you can change your wallpaper by copying the picture you want to the folder /usr/share/pixmaps/backgrounds/gnome and renaming it to "background-default.jpg"

Changing GTK Theme

Gnome configuration value:

/desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme

Show current gtk theme:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --get  /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme

Set a new gtk theme (you can find them in /usr/share/themes):

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type string /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme Redmond

Changing Icon Theme

Gnome configuration value:

/desktop/gnome/interface/icon_theme

Show current icon theme:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --get /desktop/gnome/interface/icon_theme

Set a new icon theme (You can find them in /usr/share/icons):

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type string /desktop/gnome/interface/icon_theme Tangerine

Changing Icon

Gnome configuration value:

/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/logo_icon_name

Show current icon name:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --get /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/logo_icon_name

Set a new icon name:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type string /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/logo_icon_name gnome-globe

The GDM icon names are the icons listed in the icon theme's folder in /usr/share/icons. For example, if your icon theme is gnome, look in /usr/share/icons/gnome/scalable to find the icon of your choice. Only the name of the icon in this directory is necessary.

Removing list of user names

Gnome configuration value:

/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list

Disable the list:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type boolean /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list true

Enable the list:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type boolean /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list false

Enabling Compiz

Gnome configuration value:

/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/wm_use_compiz

Enable Compiz:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type boolean /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/wm_use_compiz true

Disable Compiz:

# sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --set --type boolean /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/wm_use_compiz false

Disabling Startup Programs

To see the startup programs run this command:

ls /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/

Each file represents a program that will run at startup.

To disable a program, delete it's file. For example:

sudo rm /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/gnome-mag.desktop

If you're not sure about wether you want the program or not, You can backup the file and restore it later.

You can also add *.desktop files of other programs that you want to load with the login screen. You might want to load fusion-icon for example, or some kind of desklet such as a floating clock.

To get a *.desktop file for a program right click it in the gnome menu and choose "Add this launcher to desktop", This will copy the *.desktop file to the desktop. You can then move it like this:

sudo mv ~/Desktop/gcalctool.desktop /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/


Relevant Links

Gnome-Unstable thread - http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=79706

GNOME Display Manager Reference Manual: Configuration - Up-To-Date GDM configuration instructions - http://library.gnome.org/admin/gdm/2.28/configuration.html.en

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