Getting ratpoison window manager added to GDM's session chooser list
Hi all,
As the subject indicates, all I'm trying to do is get ratpoison (a
window manager) added to GDM's session list. As this is Debian, this
seemingly trivial issue has become inordinately difficult to resolve.
Hopefully, people here have the appropriate authority or knowledge of
Debian/freedesktop.org policy needed to actually get this resolved.
Most window managers seem to simply add themselves by placing a .desktop
file in /usr/share/xsessions. Currently, the ratpoison window manager
registers itself though the Debian menu system. A package called
menu-xdg seems to transform Debian menus into freedesktop.org menus, and
also auto-generates .desktop files in /var/lib/menu-xdg/xsessions which
seems to be appropriate for an session chooser.
The original bug against ratpoison is #563959
(http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=563959) in which the
package maintainer tells me to file a bug against GDM.
The bug I filed against GDM is #564071. In which the GDM maintainer says
the only place to register for xsessions is in /usr/share/xsessions
and that the Debian menu system mechanism is broken (there is a response
to this from the ratpoison maintainer in ##563959).
To further confuse issues, it appears that GDM did use to scan
/var/lib/menu-xdg/xsessions for .desktop files, before support for it
was removed in bug #464179
(http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=464179). In addition
KDM *does currently* scan this folder for xsession .desktop files.
Also, I suspect neither package maintainer is going to be quick to budge.
I also note that neither upstream KDM or GDM appear to be aware of the
/var/lib/menu-xdg/xsessions folder. This appears to be a Debian-specific
change. Furthermore, I cannot find any reference to specifications that
would cause /var/lib/menu-xdg/xsessions to be scanned for .desktop files
nor what caused KDM (and once GDM) to be modified to look for these
files. Although presumably these was a good reason.
Looking forward to a response,
Francis Russell
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