Re: Behaviour change in Xorg's xdm between 5.99.5 and 5.99.7

["S.P.Zeidler" <spz%serpens.de@localhost>]

Thus wrote Geert Hendrickx (ghen%telenet.be@localhost):

> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 06:34:41PM +0000, S.P.Zeidler wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > paul%whooppee.com@localhost (Paul Goyette) writes:
> > 
> > >I just installed 5.99.7 (including Xorg) built from yesterday's sources, 
> > >and noticed something a little odd:
> > 
> > >The xdm login widget displays ONLY the "Login:" field, until after an 
> > >entry is made in that field and the Enter/Return key is pressed.  Only 
> > >after pressing Enter is the "Password:" field displayed.  On my other 
> > >5.99.5 systems buit from 2008-12-13 sources, both fields are displayed 
> > >right from the beginning.
> > 
> > Try compiling xdm with USE_PAM=NO, it'll probably revert to the old
> > behaviour.
> 
> 
> Can this be changed in configuration, too?

Alas, no; xdm has no use_pam flag, although it might with a little bit of
work. It's a pure compile option at present.
(See xsrc/external/mit/xdm/dist/greeter/greet.c mostly)

The rationale for the behaviour is that with PAM you may get a different
password prompt, eg for your SSH passphrase or your Kerberos passwd, and
PAM itself might not know what options to offer you until you give it your
username.

regards,
        spz
-- 
spz%serpens.de@localhost (S.P.Zeidler)