Putting my new FreeBSD 9.3 desktop online ....

[doug]

On Sat, 16 Aug 2014, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:

>
> On 08/16/14 11:31, Polytropon wrote:
[cut]
>> An alternative to xdm with a similar look and feel is wdm,
>> the WindowMaker display manager, which almost looks like the
>> Solaris/CDE login manager. Maybe it's worth trying this one?
>> It even supports easily switching desktops or window managers
>> for an account (e. g., login user "foo" and start Xfce session,
>> or start Fluxbox session instead).
>> 
>> Regarding xdm configuration:
>> 
>> Fiddling with files in /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm sounds terrible.
>> I have to admit that I'm using custom settings for xdm, but
>> the correct places for such changes probably are /etc/X11/xdm
>> or at least /usr/local/etc/xdm (because those are places where
>> configuration files are located that are subject to the usual
>> versioning and backup processes). I have decided to keep the
>> stuff in /etc/X11/xdm (because xorg.conf also is in /etc/X11)
>> and create symlinks from the original location to where I
>> put _my_ configuration files (which are backed up and under
>> version control).

Note that the Xorg folks recommend this is the way to do it:

tail -11 xdm-config
DisplayManager*session:         /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession
DisplayManager*reset:           /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm/Xreset
DisplayManager*authComplain:    true
! The following three resources set up display :0 as the console.
DisplayManager._0.setup:        /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm/Xsetup_0
DisplayManager._0.startup:      /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm/GiveConsole
DisplayManager._0.reset:        /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm/TakeConsole
DisplayManager*loginmoveInterval:       10
! SECURITY: do not listen for XDMCP or Chooser requests
! Comment out this line if you want to manage X terminals with xdm
DisplayManager.requestPort:     0

But this is one of the great things about open source. If you do not like 
something you can almost always find something that suits you better. I like 
kde3.5 and did not like kde4.