How to change your login screen

Night Fire · #1 7th May 2008, 01:25 PM

This is a simple how to on changing you log on Screen. This is very easy way to add more eye candy to you Linux system. I do everything under Gnome GUI so lets get Started. Please read the agreement at bottom.

First off you will need to get some new login screens. I goto www.gnome-look.org to get mine. Just look to the left side under content and click on GDM Themes. Pick one out or pick a few out, That's totally up to you.

Next we need to open the Login Window Preferences scrren so we can add our new theme or themes.
Click on System->Administration->Login Window

Now you will be promt to enter your password

Now you are at the Login Window Preferences Screen. Click the Local tab at the top. You should now be at a screen that looks like this one.

Lets go Over some of what you see.
Style - Set to Themed with face browser
Theme - This is up to you. Do you the want the same one over and over, or do u want it to rotate? I use Random from selected and then select the ones I would like to see. If you Choose this option put check marks next to the ones you want to appear.
Menu Bar - I suggest all 3 are checked
Welcome Message - Up to you if you want to put in a custom Comment.

Now lets install the new theme. Most themes that you download will be in tar.gz format. All you have to do is drag the file onto the screen where the other themes are. That's it, Nothing to it. If there in another format that's not drag and drop, Extract it and click the Add tab on right side. Goto where you had extracted it to.

If you get time check out my site and let me know what you think. If you see anything I can aprove just let me know.

My Web Site

Enjoy

Agreement: This is just general information. This is just information that I found to be useful and would like to share. I am not responsible for any problems that you encounter while using this info. I provide no warranty, guarantee, or liability of any kind. If you decide to use it, you are useing at your own risk. If you use this information, you agree that I am not to be blamed for damages, whatever their nature, resulting from the use of this guide.

JN4OldSchool · #2 7th May 2008, 01:35 PM

This is wonderful!

Now, try this in F9!

Or am I missing something?

Night Fire · #3 7th May 2008, 01:39 PM

Thanks,
I just download FC9 and was going to play with it this weekend. So I hope to get some simple How tos going next week. So I hope.

skolnick · #4 16th May 2008, 07:29 PM

Good luck with your tutorials no doing this with F9 (it's not Fedora Core anymore...why calling it FC9?

) since it uses GDM 2.22 which was totally redesigned and it doesn't even include gdmsetup program. So far, I am stuck with the default login theme in F9 (which seems ugly to me).

Regards.

nick.stumpos · #5 16th May 2008, 08:13 PM

I assume you can still manually change the gdm.conf? <I dont have f9>

Night Fire · #6 16th May 2008, 08:36 PM

Old habit dies hards, lol. No doing it on F9 just F8, F7, and F6. The only thing I was can think of for now would be to change the splashscreen for now.

***Dangermouse*** · #7 16th May 2008, 08:42 PM

Heres Three different ways for F9 autologin etc.. , personally not fond of any of them.

http://dnmouse.webs.com/autologin.html

gonney · #8 16th May 2008, 10:17 PM

So the first option is only for autologins. The second option is to back rev to gdm 2.20. The third option is the "offical" documentation. None of these are good because you don't get to use the distroed package or they only allow you to setup auto login. The offical documentation doesn't tell you how to successfully do anything but setup autologin just like the first option. I've tried for many hours to do something simple like change the back ground image to no avail. This is so far the #1 bug in F9.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dangermouse

Heres Three different ways for F9 autologin etc.. , personally not fond of any of them.

http://dnmouse.webs.com/autologin.html

ashlakim · #9 17th May 2008, 10:02 AM

How do FC9 users change their login window as in use a fancier one? Im on Fc9 and on fc8 was simple same to the first post in this thread. Any one got any idea on how to change the login window?

JN4OldSchool · #10 17th May 2008, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gonney

So the first option is only for autologins. The second option is to back rev to gdm 2.20. The third option is the "offical" documentation. None of these are good because you don't get to use the distroed package or they only allow you to setup auto login. The offical documentation doesn't tell you how to successfully do anything but setup autologin just like the first option. I've tried for many hours to do something simple like change the back ground image to no avail. This is so far the #1 bug in F9.

Not a bug, it is an incomplete app. Also not #1, that distinction goes to no 3D available to nVidia users. You have 2 options, 1. Pick a way around the problem as Dangermouse suggests or 2. Wait it out till GDM is complete. I guess a third option would be to revert back to F8 or find another distro either temporarily or permanently. FOSS ia all about choice.

As an aside, most of us feel your frustration. It is what it is, we just have to make the best of it. In a month or two these problems will all be worked out.

gonney · #11 19th May 2008, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JN4OldSchool

Not a bug, it is an incomplete app. Also not #1, that distinction goes to no 3D available to nVidia users. You have 2 options, 1. Pick a way around the problem as Dangermouse suggests or 2. Wait it out till GDM is complete. I guess a third option would be to revert back to F8 or find another distro either temporarily or permanently. FOSS ia all about choice.

As an aside, most of us feel your frustration. It is what it is, we just have to make the best of it. In a month or two these problems will all be worked out.

Your correct it isn't a bug and I'm dealing with it. I actually just reverted to GDM 2.20 and I'll stick with that until they have GDM 2.22 working better. I mostly use Fedora because I find it the easiest to get VMware working.

mariobros · #12 19th May 2008, 09:14 PM

...I sorted it out just by defining DESKTOP=KDE in /etc/sysconfig/desktop (which is strange, this file was missing). BTW. Hello everybody, just first post on fedoraforum

Night Fire · #13 27th May 2008, 11:36 PM

Found this but haven't tried it myself yet, but thought I would put it out here anyways. If you try it post and let us know if it worked.

http://www.hacktux.com/fedora/gdm/theme

DennyCrane · #14 29th May 2008, 12:39 AM

Of course I have thought of the "Brute Force" method mentioned in the link above, but wouldn't it be slightly nicer if we could just point to a different file? Does anyone know what file is pointing to the waves.xml file?

DennyCrane · #15 29th May 2008, 01:24 AM

Okay -

You can change the background by editing /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/%gconf-tree.xml as root. Find the following line and edit it to point to the desired background file:

Code:

<stringvalue>/usr/share/backgrounds/waves/waves.xml</stringvalue>

Make sure the directory/files within /usr/share/backgrounds has proper context assigned:

Code:

restorecon -r /usr/share/backgrounds/SOME_DIRECTORY

I didn't realize this problem at first, after having copied over the infinity files from Fedora 8.

I have yet to determine how to change the theme for the login screen. If anyone could point me in the right direction...?