gdm > 2.26: a11y should use onboard and not gok that is missing

[Francesco Fumanti]

Binary package hint: gdm

The new GDM (GDM > 2.26) offers an Accessibility Dialog to start different assistive tools, among others an onscreen keyboard.

By default, GDM is configured to start the onscreen keyboard GOK. However, GOK is not shipped with Ubuntu; the onscreen keyboard named onboard is shipped with Ubuntu. So GDM should be configured to launch onboard instead of GOK when the user activates the onscreen keyboard in the Accessibility Dialog of GDM.

To change the configuration of GDM from GOK to onboard the following has to be done:
- Remove the gok.desktop file from the autostart directory of GDM; under Ubuntu it is: /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/
- Add a desktop file for onboard to the autostart directory of GDM (where we just removed the gok.desktop file). The desktop file for onboard has to contain a specific AutostartCondition in order to link it to the screen_keyboard_enabled gconf key that is controlled by the onscreen keyboard item of the Accessibility Dialog of GDM. You can find an onboard.desktop file with the correct AutostartCondition attached to this bug thread.
(In fact, it is the file that I am already using for a few weeks to start onboard instead of GOK during GDM.)

You can have a look at the Accessibility Configuration Section of the GDM manual for more background information about how it works; this manual is already shipping with the current development version of Ubuntu.

To put it short, all that is necessary to do in order to configure GDM to start onboard instead of GOK is to replace the file gok.desktop in /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/ with the file onboard.desktop supplied in this bug thread.

By the way, launchpad bug #130368 is solved in the new GDM in Ubuntu once it is correctly configured.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gdm - 2.27.90-0ubuntu7

---------------
gdm (2.27.90-0ubuntu7) karmic; urgency=low

  [ Ken VanDine ]
  * debian/patches/10_xsplash.patch:
    - Use --daemon instead of using the "&" (LP: #430834)
  * debian/control:
    - Conflict with xsplash (<< 0.8), we don't depend on xsplash but if
      /usr/bin/xsplash exists we need it to support the --daemon option

  [ Martin Pitt ]
  * debian/gdm.upstart: Drop gdm-cdd.conf handling, gdm does not support it
    any more.
  * debian/gdm.upstart: Do not start in single-user modes or when "text" is
    given as a kernel command line option. This restores previous behaviour.
    (LP: #431176)
  * Add debian/onboard.desktop: gdm "onboard" configuration for the
    accessibility dialog, thanks to Francesco Fumanti!
  * debian/rules: Install onboard.desktop, remove gok.desktop from upstream
    install. We do not ship gok any more. (LP: #423831, #130368)

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:22:46 +0200