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How do you manually change the MDM theme?

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:23 pm
by 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!

Re: How do you manually change the MDM theme?

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 7:19 pm
by 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.

Re: How do you manually change the MDM theme?

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:09 am
by 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.

Re: How do you manually change the MDM theme?

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 11:55 am
by 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.

Re: How do you manually change the MDM theme?

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 5:16 pm
by 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!

Re: How do you manually change the MDM theme?

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 7:26 pm
by 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).