MDM now allows distributions to define their own default configuration in /usr/share/mdm/distro.conf.
For any given configuration key, the value is looked up in the following files and in the following order:
- /etc/mdm/mdm.conf (set up by the user with or without mdmsetup)
- /usr/share/mdm/distro.conf (provided by distributions)
- /usr/share/mdm/defaults.conf (provided by MDM)
This is obviously great news for distributions, but it’s also good news to users as distributions are now able to set their defaults without hacking the MDM package (which introduced differences between Git versions of MDM and distribution packages) or worse the /etc/mdm/mdm.conf file.
If in the past you upgraded MDM and you were surprised to see it default to the Circle GDM theme for instance… well, this fixes it :)
Hopefully more distros will start to use it then, great work!
Now that you mention it, MDM has already replaced LXDM in Manjaro 0.8.7 and it looks pretty much like the default set up. Either way, it works fine so it’s good news about “dist-conf”.
On a bit of off-topic note…Manjaro is to Arch what Linux Mint is to Ubuntu and Debian and it appears the devs are taking a lesson from what the Mint devs have been doing over the years while remaining true to their own distro. This is a good thing indeed. Unfortunately, the current community edition of Manjaro/Cinnamon leaves much to be desired (it’s both Gnome 3/gnome-shell/Nautilus, etc and Cinnamon 1.88/Nemo, etc–doesn’t work). Once Cinnamon 2.0 is released I have this pipe dream that the Mint devs get together with the Manjaro devs/community and collaborate on a pure, properly configured Manjaro/Cinnamon 2.0 edition.
I would be in heaven.
Now, back to reality. ;-)
I like Kirk M’s idea. I think other distributions that use MDM or any Mint software should try to work together for the better”ment” of Mint tools. Manjaro can be one of these distributions. I think the developers have a similar vision of how GNU/Linux serve its users.
What is a mdm? And what would one do with it?
MDM stands for MDM Display Manager. One typically logs in the computer with it.
Now if only I had that basic mdm template I was asking for ___.___
I made a basic template here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=126979&start=220
It has all the basic components needed to make one.
Hopefully it can help you out.
I’m still going to make more, just getting caught up with other stuff and burning some brain cells out teaching myself opengl lol.
Hi clem,
I wanted to suggest something but I was afraid it would not be a good idea for everyone but i would like it none the less..
not unlike KDE animated desktop would it be possible to feature some sort of radically different way of animated desktop themes within the ‘Backgrounds’ menu?
We know HTML can be used for animated logins so why cant it or something similar be used for animated backgrounds?
I would also like a few (nothing major) additional ‘effects’ in ‘Effects’ one such thing would be an openGL smoke effect across the desktop that could not go into the menu bar or windows to create some eerie atmospheres :)
Sorry if they sound a bit daft but with some desktop animation it brings the experience to life after all the consoles do this smoke effect and animated tiles, as does windows 8 and all smart phones & im sure apple has something similar coming so just a flat 2D non animated experience is getting quite old now
Clem – I have a question about Cinnamon version 2.0 acting as an independent desktop environment. I mostly understand how Cinnamon 2.0 will be independent from the Gnome 3 version number as far as “cinnamon-session” and “cinnamon-settings-daemon” are concerned but I’m not sure how it becomes independent from “clutter” and “GTK3″(updates). Could you possibly shed some light on that?
Hi Kirk,
You’re right, it will still rely on GTK, Clutter and a few other libs. What we’re replacing in Cinnamon 2.0, other than a few libs, is the backend. In Cinnamon 1.8, if you perform a “ps -ef | grep gnome” you can see all the GNOME backend, the runtime processes which make the non-visible part of GNOME. Cinnamon 1.8 communicates with these over dbus for instance, that’s why it’s tightly linked to a particular version of GNOME.
You can compare Cinnamon 2.0 to MATE or Xfce if you want.. it’s still built on GNOME techs (gtk, gsettings..etc) but it’s no longer a visual layer on top of a GNOME desktop.
Thanks for the reply, Clem. That clears things up a bit.
One more question about Cinnamon 2.0 – if “it’s no longer a visual layer on top of a GNOME desktop”, does that mean that my Sapphire 7790 video card is going to work just fine without proprietary driver (to say the truth, it does not work as it should with latest driver from AMD, neither)? In other words, will there still be a “running in software rendering mode” problem, when CPU works all the time at 60-80% and my cursor blinks from time to time? I love Cinnamon very much and I am pretty sad because I’m unable to use it every day (currently using Mate)… Both Nadia & Olivia Cinnamon x64 worked out-of-the-box with my old 5750 card (so did Maya, too), there was no need for AMD drivers, except when I wanted to run some games…
Unfortunately, it won’t have any impact on this.
That’s sad… Anyway, thanks for the reply!
And keep up the good work, because, at the moment, Cinnamon is the best desktop/laptop experience in the world!!! Cheers!