ANNOUNCE: GDM 2.2.3, the "Chosen" release

[George <jirka 5z com>]

FRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMFTKT

Another release of gdm is cast upon this gloomy world.  This time I decided to
concentrate mostly on XDMCP, that is a feature which 1% of gdm users are using.
Regardless, it is now in a state that's mostly compliant with the xdmcp spec,
rid of races and other bugs, and generally working quite well.  In fact it does
handle one case which xdm screws up (run chooser on local gdm to log into a
remote box).  Which brings me to big new thing that is actually working with
this release, the chooser.  Yes, the documentation mentioned it since the
beginnings of time, yet the code was never there apparently.  The setup is
not as flexible as xdm itself.  But I'd say 99% of use cases will work right.

There are also a bunch of other fixes and feature enhancements so you
should upgrade anyway.  One thing that is fixed that many people complained
about is the overzeleaous centering of windows.

And now for the standard part of the release announcement:

Ahh, so you have no clue what gdm is?  Well if you've read this far ... let's
not get into that.  Gdm is GNOME Display Manager, the little daemon that lets
you log in to your computer.  It allows xdmcp multiple login displays,
selection of languages, multiple login sessions and generally is much cooler
then any xdm clone out there, mostly cuz it isn't an xdm clone to begin with.
I mean heck, it's even got a graphical configurator, so you don't have to use
the command line to hose your system anymore.

News:
=====

I decided to make this 2.2.3 rather then 2.2.2.2 since the changes are
rather large.  Not to mention that 2.2.3 is the prime decomposition of 12
the significance of which I fail to understand.

Highlights of 2.2.3:

- Various XDMCP fixes, including a working indirect queries (the host chooser).
  Plus various chooser enhancements and fixes

- The "window manager" better handles window positioning, to make programs
  like gkrellm behave more sanely.  Also follow the motif decoration hint.

- The internal error/info dialog uses GNOME to look prettier and is centered

- Build xdmcp only if the libs exist

- Handle upgrades more sanely.

- Scripts get correct environment

- On failsafe xterm session just warp the pointer to transfer focus,
  this makes pointer focus still work

- An option to always restart server rather then just reinitializing it
  when a user logs out

- XDMCP login box has a "Quit" menu item which kills the connection,
  useful if you chose a box you don't know the login to.

- Now handles busy server by notifying the user instead of treating it
  as a server crash

- Docs and configurator up to date to all new configuration keys
  (Trevor Curtis, me)

- Better pam and console helper configure setup and other configure fixes

- Add ja and zh_TW.Big5 translations again (Karl Eichwalder, me)

- Assorted fixes, cleanups (Kjartan, Nalin Dahyabhai, me)

- spec file cleanup (Dean Scott)

- Translations (Marius Andreiana, Christian Rose, Ole Laursen,
	        Karl Eichwalder, "R.I.P. Deaddog", Christian Meyer,
		Pablo Saratxaga, Kjartan Maraas, Christophe Merlet, 
		Khairulanuar Abd Majid, me)

Note:  Gdm2 was originally written by Martin K. Petersen <mkp mkp net>, and
is now maintained by the Queen of England.  Although when she's not answering
her email, me or Lee Mellabone usually cover for her.

Note2:  If installing from the tarball do note that make install now
overwrites most of the setup files, all except gdm.conf and gnomerc.  It will
however save backups with the .orig extention first.

Note3:  Distributors, packagers.  Please, PLEASE use the standard Gnome script
when setting things up as gnome, or at least equivalently working scripts.  It
should never be OK to just exec gnome-session, that is considered bad form.
The script needs to read (if available) the ~/.gnomerc and otherwise read
the <sysconfdir>/gdm/gnomerc file.  This allows users and administrators to
setup custom startup for gnome.  Another thing is that if your distro
doesn't have gnome-core 1.4.0.3 you should probably disable the Gnome Chooser
stuff until that happens (you should update gnome-core anyway).  Third thing is
make sure to set up the X servers to run on the correct virtual terminals if
you start the gdm process before the other login thingies.  See the end of the
gdm.conf sample file.

Downloading:
============

To download the beast, go to:

ftp://ftp.5z.com/pub/gdm/
ftp://ftp.gnome.com/pub/GNOME/stable/sources/gdm/
ftp://ftp.gnome.com/pub/GNOME/stable/redhat/i386/gdm/
ftp://ftp.gnome.com/pub/GNOME/stable/redhat/SRPMS/gdm/

(Note: I've also made an Alpha/Linux rpm, which is available at the 5z site)

Have fun,

George

PS:  Not only did the "sex for code" experiment fail quite apparently, I also
seem to be getting out less when working on gdm.  I mean it's 3:30 in the
morning, and I haven't set foot outside the house all day (yesterday by now).
There are certain advantages to hacking gdm compared to sex.  For one, I
cannot get any strange disease (However if I introduce a bad security problem
a mob of angry sysadmins might come and beat me to death with a baseball
bat).  Second, I don't have to go out and do boring stuff and can stay home
and hack on gdm ... oh wait ...

-- 
George <jirka 5z com>
   Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not
   always like being taught.
                       -- Sir Winston Churchill