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Bruce Byfield: Documentation and Free Software



In his blog Bruce Byfield takes Debian's default gdm3 wallpaper (or
rather his aim to change the wallpaper) as an example for lack of
documentation:

"I wanted to get rid of the nauseatingly cute default Debian 6.0
wallpaper on the login screen." [...]

"Finally, after an hour of scanning pages and trying what three or four
procedures, each of which, the writer confidently assured me, was the
right answer, I manage to cobble together a simple four-step procedure
from suggestions that, while often unclear or incomplete, were close to
being accurate that experimentation could correct them:

   1. Log in as root and open the file /etc/gdm3/greeter.gconf-defaults
in a text editor.
   2. Uncomment the field /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename and
add as its value the full path to the image you want to use as gdm3's
background.
   3. Uncomment the field /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme and add a
valid theme. Then save and close the file.
   4. Run the command dpkg-reconfigure gdm3.

Simple? Yes, once you know how. But that simple task had taken me ten
times longer to do than I expected -- and all because nobody could be
bothered to write down the procedure."

http://www.linux-magazine.com/content/view/full/47500

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