[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#884097: lightdm-gtk-greeter: default panel options have disappeared

[ian_bruce at mail.ru]

It appears that the default panel layout has changed between
lightdm-gtk-greeter versions <v2.0.2> and <v2.0.3>, although this is not
mentioned in the changelog. Specifically, the language selector,
session/environment selector, accessibility options, and reboot/poweroff
menu have all disappeared. The default now seems to be to display only
the hostname and clock in the panel.

Rather than using the default, the panel layout can be explicitly
controlled with the "indicators" option in the config file
</etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf>. This patch approximates the
previous default configuration:


--- unpack/etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf	2017-12-09 15:38:30.000000000 -0800
+++ /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf	2017-12-21 23:27:25.998580178 -0800
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
 #xft-dpi=
 #xft-hintstyle=
 #xft-rgba=
-#indicators=
+indicators=~clock;~spacer;~host;~spacer;~language;~session;~power
 #clock-format=
 #keyboard=
 #reader=


This at least restores the reboot/poweroff function. However, problems
with the other functions remain:

- both the Debian and upstream changelogs indicate that the
accessibility options have been removed, for unspecified reasons. This
being so, the comment in <lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf> offering the "~a11y"
option should also be removed, to avoid confusion.

- the language selector does not now work, and has not worked for a long
time. Apparently, this is not considered to be a problem.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=765077

- the session selector defaults to whatever the previous user chose,
which is clearly absurd.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=838610

Hopefully, these long-standing problems can be fixed, and lightdm can be
restored to the functionality it once had, but no longer does. Wasn't
the progressive removal of functionality from Gnome and GDM, the reason
why lightdm was started in the first place?


-- Ian Bruce