Bug#247196: kdm: clarify documentation
Package: kdm
Version: 4:3.2.2-1
Severity: wishlist
1) The current documentation makes several references to the xdm
manpage, but users may not have xdm installed. For this and other
reasons, a kdm manpage would be good (see also bug #193527).
2) README.Debian does indicate it is for xdm, but it would be helpful
to have a few lines explaining how this translates to kdm. Among the
interpretations that occurred to me were
* kdm uses the same files
* kdm uses files of the same name but in /etc/kde3 (seems to be the
case)
* kdm uses its own files with different names (e.g., starting with a
k)
README.gz did allow me to infer it was the second, but that's a bit
obscure. Perhaps README.Debian could be removed?
3) README.Debian includes confusions and redundancies. It refers to
"The above three files", but there only seemed to be one file
(xdm-config) that had been mentioned (Xresources is a directory,
though perhaps not outside of Debian. Even so, that's only two
files). The phrase "See the X(1) manual page for more information
about X resources" occurs twice, and the surrounding discussion is a
bit repetitive in other ways.
4) README.gz has a discussion headed "The command FiFos" which doesn't
quite indicate, from a user perspective, how to use them. I tried
echo commands to the relevant files, and that seemed to work. While
the cogniscenti may know that already, saying it explicitly would
be useful.
The discussion seems to imply that the low level interface doesn't
matter because there are higher level tools: ksmserver and kdesktop.
I tried starting the former and it messed up my session so badly I had
to kill it. I assume the latter is always running; I looked on my
menus but didn't see anything that seemed related to this.
I was specifically looking for how to start up a session that had been
specified in Xservers with the "reserve" word. There seem to be other
problems with that, which I reported in a previous bug. The point
here is that while some of the functionality is accessible from the
desktop (e.g., shutdown and restart), reserve and other functionality
does not seem to be.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (50, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.24advncdfs
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
Versions of packages kdm depends on:
ii debconf 1.4.22 Debian configuration management sy
ii kdebase-bin 4:3.2.2-1 KDE Base (binaries)
ii kdelibs4 4:3.2.2-2 KDE core libraries
ii libart-2.0-2 2.3.16-5 Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-11 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libfam0c102 2.7.0-5 client library to control the FAM
ii libgcc1 1:3.3.3-6 GCC support library
ii libice6 4.3.0-7 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii libpam-runtime 0.76-19 Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii libpam0g 0.76-19 Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii libpng12-0 1.2.5.0-5 PNG library - runtime
ii libqt3c102-mt 3:3.2.3-2 Qt GUI Library (Threaded runtime v
ii libsm6 4.3.0-7 X Window System Session Management
ii libstdc++5 1:3.3.3-6 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii libx11-6 4.3.0-7 X Window System protocol client li
ii libxext6 4.3.0-7 X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii libxrender1 0.8.3-7 X Rendering Extension client libra
ii libxtst6 4.3.0-7 X Window System event recording an
ii xbase-clients 4.3.0-7 miscellaneous X clients
ii xlibs 4.3.0-7 X Window System client libraries m
ii zlib1g 1:1.2.1-5 compression library - runtime
-- debconf information:
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
LANGUAGE = (unset),
LC_ALL = (unset),
LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"
are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
kdm/stop_running_server_with_children: false
* kdm/default_servers_nolisten_tcp:
* kdm/default_servers_100dpi:
* kdm/kdmrc:
shared/default-x-display-manager: kdm
* kdm/default_nolisten_udp:
kdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/kdm
kdm/oldconfig:
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