Howdy...
DasFox wrote:After all look at the GDM login for 7 then look at it in 8, it's gone and the excuse is, that Ubuntu did this.
Actually, the new GDM isn't "Ubuntu's fault." If you want to "blame" (although that word is a bit harsh - I'll get to why in a second) someone, point the finger at the GNOME developers.
DasFox wrote:Ok great Ubuntu removed the option to have a GDM setup, so Mint should of figured a way to put it back and keep the tradition of the 'Elegance' alive.
So here's where I say that the word "blame" is a bit harsh...
I once thought exactly as you do. One can imagine how perplexed (and disappointed - at least initially) I was when I was first greeted by GDM after installing Helena. However, once I did some research on the topic, I understand why the change was made in Ubuntu (and therefore, in Mint - and possibly dozens of other distros), and have since decided to cut the GDM developers some slack.
You see, unlike previous incarnations, the new GDM is based completely around X11. It is vastly different - from a technology standpoint - as compared to the old GDM. From the time that the new GDM greeter initialises, through the point that you enter your password and press the "Login" button, to the moment that you're presented with your desktop, an X session is already up-and-running.
This has two advantages:
- 1. The time it takes to get from GRUB (or Lilo) to desktop is greatly reduced, because an active X session has already been initialised in parallel with other startup services, and
- 2. GDM can take advantage of forthcoming technologies (such as touch-screen interfaces) via Xinput (X11's input device subsystem), which would would be difficult to do under the "old" GDM.
In fact, the new GDM is
much more customisable than the old one; the world just hasn't caught up yet.
For example, we know that "touch" is all the rage right now. Sure, people have been playing around with it for a long time (some 20+ years), and it found a niche in places like kiosks, medical diagnostic equipment, etc., but until quite recently, the idea that TUIs (Touch User Interfaces) would go mainstream was still pretty fringe. Then the iPhone came along, and the HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) world hasn't been the same since...
So, imagine how difficult it would be to interact with GDM on a slate computing device (Apple is rumoured to be announcing one on January 27; Archos, Dell, HP, and IBM have already announced their own respective devices) without a keyboard, if there were no input device bindings available to GDM other than standard BIOS keyboard/mouse events, and no desktop compositing capability. You would literally need to write a different version of GDM for every model of touch screen/digitiser out there.
But with the new GDM, a whole new world of functionality is now available to it vis-a-vis user interface technology. Since the new GDM runs on top of X11, it can now take advantage of certain desktop compositing techniques (think "Compiz-Lite") and touch-input technology to display an on-screen keyboard, pass on-screen touch events to an input parser, and allow the user to login, all without using a "real" keyboard and mouse. Any input device that can be made to work with X11 will - in theory - work with GDM, without having to modify GDM itself.
And
that is more elegant that any "theme" you can wrap around GDM.
So, understanding that first impressions mean a lot (after all, I was disappointed, too), I wouldn't fret too much about the new GDM being "not as customisable." The tools are coming; they just haven't made it here yet.
Gnome Shell (coming with GNOME 3.x), on the other hand, is a different story, and is IM-not-so-HO just about as "inelegant" as a piece of software can get without becoming unusable:
But I digress...
Best Regards,
Lumenary
US-OH-Newton Falls
TZ=EST/EDT
