Bug#247196: kdm: clarify documentation
On Tue, May 04, 2004 at 12:10:06PM +0200, Achim Bohnet wrote:
> On Monday 03 May 2004 21:35, Ross Boylan wrote:
> > Package: kdm
> > Version: 4:3.2.2-1
> > Severity: wishlist
>
> Hi Ross,
> >
> > 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).
>
> Agreed. Care to write (parts) of it? That would be great.
Bug 193527 suggests there was such a page at one point. Perhaps it
exists but is not in the Debian package.
I found a kdm handbook at
http://docs.kde.org/en/3.2/kdebase/kdm/
There's also kdebase/doc/kdm/kdmrc-ref.docbook in the sources; this
appears to be incorporated into the handbook as one of the pages.
Unfortunately, it has nothing about reserved sessions, as far as I can
tell (point 4 below), and under other resources it does not list a man
page (or rather, it directs you to the xdm man page). The top hits on
KDE's site don't seem to show a man page.
> >
> > 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?
>
> I had a look at README.Debian and I agree to that the file is
> more confusing that helpful and should be removed.
>
> The only debian specific infos worth to note IMHO would be
> how and where debian select what x display manager gets used,
> because that really Debian specific.
I'm not sure if that's all; for example, I think treating Xresources
as a directory rather than a file may be Debian-specific. And
generally, if stuff is in this file it may be Debian specific.
>
> Hmm, because default entries in Xserver use -tcp nolisten one can
> also mention that 'Remote Session' in the kdm greeter menu
> will not work.
Also, I think the magic to come up with the default list of session
types is also Debian-specific. I haven't seen that discussed
anywhere; I found it while tracing through the code.
>
> > 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
>
> s/command/Command/ in README.gz so source string matches target string
> (for tools with case sensitive search).
>
> > 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.
>
> Care to provide better description?
Well, I'm not sure I know how to work it yet. We can probably leave
this item for my other bug 247193, since it appears to be solely a
documentation issue. In the part of your response I snipped you do
say that the "start a session" menu item only appears if you have
reserve sessions, so that should answer my question (in the other bug)
about how to get the menu item. I'm still wondering if the same
effect can be achieved without the GUI.
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