How do you manually change the MDM theme?

[BrandonNC]

Hello all,

I have about 30 machines I would like to change the MDM theme on. I have already copied my new theme to /usr/share/mdm/themes so that I now have the circles theme, the standard linuxmint theme, and now "mytheme" a directory.

My question is, what file or files do I need to edit (from a command line) to change the default theme from linuxmint to mytheme? I tried grepping everything in /etc for "linuxmint" && "theme" but couldn't find anything except for the grub theme.

Thanks!

[snx51]

Hello BrandonNC,

if you choose another theme than the standard theme (Linux Mint) in the GUI, the line

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GraphicalTheme=[themefolder]

is added in /etc/mdm/mdm.conf. Adding this line manually with the console does work, too. You have to edit the file with sudo.

I added the content of my mdm.conf for better finding the place where the line is added within the conf-file (my custom theme is in /usr/share/mdm/themes/space/):

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MDM Custom Configuration file.
#
# This file is the appropriate place for specifying your customizations to the
# MDM configuration.   If you run mdmsetup, it will automatically edit this
# file for you and will cause the daemon and any running MDM GUI programs to
# automatically update with the new configuration.  Not all configuration
# options are supported by mdmsetup, so to modify some values it may be
# necessary to modify this file directly by hand.
#
# This file overrides the default configuration settings.  These settings
# are stored in the MDM System Defaults configuration file, which is found
# at the following location.
#
# /usr/share/mdm/defaults.conf. 
#
# This file contains comments about the meaning of each configuration option,
# so is also a useful reference.  Also refer to the documentation links at
# the end of this comment for further information.  In short, to hand-edit
# this file, simply add or modify the key=value combination in the
# appropriate section in the template below this comment section.
#
# For example, if you want to specify a different value for the Enable key
# in the "[debug]" section of your MDM System Defaults configuration file,
# then add "Enable=true" in the "[debug]" section of this file.  If the
# key already exists in this file, then simply modify it.
#
# Older versions of MDM used the "mdm.conf" file for configuration.  If your
# system has an old mdm.conf file on the system, it will be used instead of
# this file - so changes made to this file will not take effect.  Consider
# migrating your configuration to this file and removing the mdm.conf file.
#
# If you hand edit a MDM configuration file, you can run the following
# command and the MDM daemon will immediately reflect the change.  Any
# running MDM GUI programs will also be notified to update with the new
# configuration.
#
# mdmflexiserver --command="UPDATE_CONFIG <configuration key>"
#
# e.g, the "Enable" key in the "[debug]" section would be "debug/Enable".
#
# You can also run mdm-restart or mdm-safe-restart to cause MDM to restart and
# re-read the new configuration settings.  You can also restart MDM by sending
# a HUP or USR1 signal to the daemon.  HUP behaves like mdm-restart and causes
# any user session started by MDM to exit immediately while USR1 behaves like
# mdm-safe-restart and will wait until all users log out before restarting MDM.
#
# For full reference documentation see the gnome help browser under
# GNOME|System category.  You can also find the docs in HTML form on
# http://www.gnome.org/projects/mdm/
#
# NOTE: Lines that begin with "#" are considered comments.
#
# Have fun!

[daemon]

DefaultSession=cinnamon.desktop




[security]

[xdmcp]

[gui]

GtkRC=

[greeter]





UseInvisibleInEntry=true

SoundOnLogin=false

SoundOnLoginSuccess=false














































GraphicalTheme=space









[chooser]

[debug]

# Note that to disable servers defined in the MDM System Defaults
# configuration file (such as 0=Standard, you must put a line in this file
# that says 0=inactive, as described in the Configuration section of the MDM
# documentation.
#
[servers]

# Also note, that if you redefine a [server-foo] section, then MDM will
# use the definition in this file, not the MDM System Defaults configuration
# file.  It is currently not possible to disable a [server-foo] section
# defined in the MDM System Defaults configuration file.
#

It seems that the line has to be somewhere within the section

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[greeter]

After adding the line, a reboot is necessary for the changes to take effect.

[BrandonNC]

Thanks this works great!

One more question, where can I change the default wallpaper that is used for users logging in for the first time? I'd like to change from the fancy 3D Linux Mint wallpaper to our company-branded background. Users can still change their own background after logging in but I'd like to set the wallpaper to a different default for users logging in to a machine for the first time.

Thanks again.

[snx51]

This setting probably differs from one Desktop Environment to another. But a good chance of finding the configuration file that contains the setting for the wallpaper is /etc which contains the host-specific system configuration. An explantion the filesystem gives the Linux (UNIX) Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.

[BrandonNC]

I'm not able to find any setting in /etc that relates to the default wallpaper for users logging in for the first time.

I cannot use /etc/skel because we have recently migrated from Ubuntu (gnome 2) and all of the users already have home directories. Now that we are using Cinnamon I would have thought that the user's old preferences for wallpaper from gnome 2 would have still worked but apparently something changes with gnome 3 (which I think is what Cinnamon uses), because every user who logs in to one of the new Cinnamon machines gets the standard 3D Linux Mint wallpaper.

Any help would be appreciated!

[snx51]

I have no further ideas...but you might consider opening a new thread to get more help since this one has another topic and new question deserves a new thread ([2] in the How to get help! excerpt from the Forum Rules. You might also consider to indicate this thread as solved ([8] in the How to get help! excerpt).