Ubuntu has come a long way since Warty Warthog, generally making improvements with each release. Sometimes, however, when a feature is replaced, the new version might not have all the tools surrounding it that the original had. Such is the case with GDM2, the login manager in newer Ubuntu releases. Many users find the current config tool to be rather lacking. The software may have some nifty improvements over the old, but it’s missing many of the user-centric controls we all know and love from prior versions. To fix that problem, we’ve got GDM2 Setup. With it, you can get back control of GDM and change things like the background image, automatic logins, and more.
Getting GDM2 Setup
As it’s not yet available in standard repos, you’ve got to install via PPA. It’s an extremely quick and easy process, and shouldn’t take more than about 2 minutes. Just open up your browser and enter:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gdm2setup/gdm2setup sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install python-gdm2setup
And to run, you can find the application under System -> Administration -> Login (GDM2Setup) or run the command:
gksu gdm2setup
Auto Login
You can enable basic auto-login for a given account if you want to keep it simple, but GDM2 Setup allows for some extra functionality as well. In this example, GDM will wait 5 seconds for someone to log in manually, and if no one does it will assume the josh user and login in automatically.
Sound/Buttons/Banner
In the second section, you can enable or disable login sounds, Shutdown/Restart buttons, and the system banner. The first two are pretty self-explanatory, and the third is a message that will show up on all login attempts.
Wallpaper
We have previously covered the way to change your login screen, but GDM2Setup make it even easier. GDM2 Setup can handle the wallpaper independently of the theme. It’s a simple dialog allowing basic image file selection and preview, but there’s also a button to automatically blur the image when it’s displayed.
Decorations
You can also use GDM2 Setup to change the icons and window decoration scheme. The only drawback here is that there is no simple method to preview the changes on this tab. If you select an option from the dropdown, you’d have to already know what it looks like. It is, however, the same icon and decoration themes found in the rest of Gnome, so you can use the normal Gnome icon and decoration tools to preview your choices if you like before saving them to GDM.
Accessibility and Themes
At the time of this writing, there are two disabled tabs at the far right of the window. These are for Accessibility and Themes, and will both be fully enabled in future versions. For some features, it’s because GDM2 Setup hasn’t implemented them yet, while others are being developed in the GDM core itself and the Setup program must wait until they’re finalized before it could make a working configuration tool.
All in all, GDM2 Setup is progressing nicely, and once all the pieces are in place it should match or exceed the power of the old configuration interface.
Does GDM2 Setup makes your life easier?
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You cannot currently enable a new wallpaper. You can select a wallpaper, click OK and nothing happens – click Cancel and nothing happens. The only option is to close the dialog with the window controls.
yes, but when you login again, you`ll see the wallpaper changed
Same here, on linuxmint 9 (ubuntu 10.04) , can't change the login image. :(
Nice read. Thanx
Installed it. Tried to change login back round, but no response when click OK. End up having to close the app;ication window. Rebooted,but no change on the login screen back round. So,I un-installed it. I've tried GDM2 3 times now. Too bad it's not working! It looks like a really good idea though.
I am unable to get this, in the Terminal I get:
nick@ubuntu:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gdm2setup/gdm2setup
[sudo] password for nick:
Error reading https://launchpad.net/api/1.0/~gdm2setup/+archi… <urlopen error [Errno -2] Name or service not known>
Oh and also http://maketecheasier.com/change-login-and-boot… I am unable to change my boot screen using that. It does not show up even though it is there it says Mac4Lin_Wallpaper2.jpg but the background just turns purple.
Thanks
Found some problems:
(1) In the version in the Repository (as of 2010/09/2), the file gdm2gconf.py has some typos around line 42 in Class GDM2Theme. There may be other – read on.
* File contains DBUG, should be DEBUG
* All file names in lines 44-47 are prefixed by the letter “u”.
Fixing that and re-executing results in the Login screen having the selected background.
(2) Alas, it looks like setting Themes and/or the Desktop backgrounds for new users does not work – more debug needed. Theme and background remain their [expletive deleted] defaults.
My $0.02…
Possible solution… I opened a terminal session and did a “sudo gdm2setup”. Then as I navigated normally in gdm2setup to change the background I noticed an error on the terminal session stating that there was “no such file or directory” for “/usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg”. So I went looking in “/usr/share/images” and noticed that the folder “xsplash” did not exist. I did a “mkdir xsplash”. Then “cd xsplash”. Then “touch bg.jpg” to create the bg.jpg file. Then I opened gdm2setup normally from the Administration Menu and I was able to change the background image.
I can confirm this latest suggestion to correct the oversight of creating the xsplash directory under /usr/share/images.
I can second that the fix worked if such confirmation is needed. Also, thanks for the program. It is a huge improvement over the current manager and I can see that with continued development it will become better than the old one.
Ok man, works perfectly. Thanks. Mae
http://ubuntuforums.org/sehowthread.php?t=1518827 use this link to rectify the login screen problem …here is simple step by step guide