gconf setting 'picture_filename' is not set correctly and GDM2Setup cannot affect a change in login wallpaper

[Growlf]

[originally posted in forums - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1358026&page=10]

Thanks for your help.

My current login screen is the purple warty background. I used the tool to change the background to "mistymorning". The image on the Select Login Wallpaper changes as required. I click OK. That window closes and I am back at Configure Login Settings window and the image displayed is still Warty.

I open the file manager and go to /usr/share/images/xsplash and there are a number of thumbnail images of MistyMorning.

I log out and the login screen is still warty. I reboot the computer and the image is still warty but the xsplash directory shows thumbnails of MistyMorning.

I then run the codes you gave me.

theo@ubuntu-8:/usr/share/images/xsplash$ sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -a "/desktop/gnome/background"
[sudo] password for theo:
picture_opacity = 100
draw_background = true
primary_color = #2c001e
color_shading_type = solid
picture_options = zoom
picture_filename = /usr/share/backgrounds/warty-final-ubuntu.png
secondary_color = #2c001e

and

theo@ubuntu-8:/usr/share/images/xsplash$ ls -la
total 512
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2010-03-10 11:32 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 2009-10-30 17:32 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-03-10 11:32 bg_1024x768.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-03-10 11:32 bg_1280x1024.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-03-10 11:32 bg_1280x800.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-03-10 11:32 bg_1440x900.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-03-10 11:32 bg_1680x1050.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-03-10 11:32 bg_1920x1200.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-03-10 11:32 bg_2560x1600.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-03-10 11:32 bg_800x600.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 178323 2010-03-10 11:32 bg.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9630 2009-10-30 04:52 logo_large.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7279 2009-10-30 04:52 logo_medium.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5231 2009-10-30 04:52 logo_small.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18016 2009-10-30 04:52 logo_xtra_large.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48270 2009-10-30 04:52 throbber_large.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48270 2009-10-30 04:52 throbber_medium.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 35707 2009-10-30 04:52 throbber_small.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 141038 2009-10-30 04:52 throbber_xtra_large.png

My screen resolution is set to 1680x1050

Theo

[Growlf (growlf)]

Something changed the default property for the image setting (picture_filename) to the warty image. It should be like the generic value (in your case: '/usr/share/images/xsplash/bg_1680x1050.jpg').

Are you using (or have you used) any other login wallpaper choosers or XSplash configuration tools? - Or made any manual changes to gconf, specifically to the picture_filename property?

Please try issuing the following command and see if all does not start going as expected:

sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg_1680x1050.jpg

[Kiwited (theo-theoperry)]

I did not open my emails this morning until now so did not realise you
had replied directly. Thus my reply went through the forum - sorry about
that.

On Wed, 2010-03-10 at 15:33 +0000, Growlf wrote:
> Something changed the default property for the image setting
> (picture_filename) to the warty image. It should be like the generic
> value (in your case: '/usr/share/images/xsplash/bg_1680x1050.jpg').
>
> Are you using (or have you used) any other login wallpaper choosers or
> XSplash configuration tools? - Or made any manual changes to gconf,
> specifically to the picture_filename property?
>
> Please try issuing the following command and see if all does not start
> going as expected:
>
> sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -t string -s
> /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename
> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg_1680x1050.jpg
>

[Growlf (growlf)]

No worries - I am just cross-posting to the forums and this bug for the moment. :)

Here is what I put in the forums in response to your statement that it freezes the system when you ran the command suggested:

Well that is very starnge indeed. The command I gave above if typed correctly, should not freeze the machine or do anything hinky at all. This definitely indicates a deeper issue underlying the login screen not changing.

I am not ready to give up on this just yet though. I wonder if you could check to see if (immediately after issuing the command I gave in the earlier post to set the value) you then run the command to check the value and see if it was indeed changed. Or is it completely impossible to run 'gconftool-2' as the user 'gdm'?

Maybe we should also see if you can even run a basic command as 'gdm' and see if that freezes the system all by itself? i.e. like: 'sudo -u gdm ls'

[Growlf (growlf)]

This from another user (Lotussteve) in Answers (https://answers.launchpad.net/gdm2setup/+question/102267):

Hello!

> Yes, please post the output of the following commands:
> sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -a "/desktop/gnome/background"
> ls -la /usr/share/images/xsplash

Ok, i´ve tried this commands now in 3 different steps, 1.) before beginning to use gdm2setup (with the 9.10 stock image of the Lotus flower) 2.) after using gdm2setup (to set another stock image of Ubuntu 9.10) and 3.) after setting everything back with "gksudo -u gdm...":

1.) picture_filename = /usr/share/backgrounds/FlordeLoto.jpg

/usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg (and the symlinks to it) are the picture of the Lotus flower. The access rights are root:root 644, is that the same at your place? ( rw-r--r-- )

2.) Set the image to another one of the stock images (Frog.jpg) via the wallpaper tab of gdm2setup:

Preview in app shows old one, the lotus flower at all times

picture_filename = /usr/share/backgrounds/FlordeLoto.jpg

/usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg is the new Frog.jpg when i view it with f.e. gthumb, so the problem is that the app doesn´t change the gconf-value here, but why?

That explains why i get a Frog as a Splashscreen, then Lotus as Background for loggin in, and again the Frog before settling for my "true" background image when GNOME is done loading!

Could it be some kind of "write-protection" in gconf? I´m using the application since it´s first version as a .deb and have changes values in gconf regarding the gdm-background "by hand" before using gdm2setup, may that be the cause?

3.) When using gnome-properties-settings as user gdm and setting Frog.jpg the value picture_filename in gconf stays the same (FlordeLoto.jpg) for the first 2 times i used the gconftool-2 command, then the third time it displays right as "Frog.jpg"! When i then log out and get back to the login screen the Frog.jpg is displayed (as xsplash and background!)!

To change it back i have to set the background with the "gnome-properties-settings" command and the xsplash-image with gdm2setup (where the whole time FlordeLoto.jpg is displayed when i enter the Wallpaper tab)! Blurring works fine btw., thanks for that option :) !

> Please also visually verify that the image listed in the gconf settings that were output above as 'picture_filename' is (or is not)
> the image you had selected.

See above, that is the problem, yes!

> We will attempt to resolve this as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we cannot replicate the issue in-house at this time - so your
> continued assistance is very appreciated.

No problem, i have to thank you for a cool tool and your help so far :) !

Glad to be of assistance,

greetings from Austria,

Steve

[Growlf (growlf)]

A simple solution may be for GDM2Setup to nolonger assume that the picture_filename is set to the default, and instead to actually set the value directly each update that occurs for tthe wallpaper. Currently we only copy the user selected image into the xsplash folder and then link the different resolutions to it - allowing the default gconf setting to continue pointing at the file as before. That is - assuming that it ever was pointing at the expected image at all. This was for security reasons (having the GDM use images from an insecure directory seems like a bad idea somehow). A compromise between the two may be what is needed - set the picture_filename value to an arbitrary file name that we copy into xsplash - and copy the user selected image to that file name.

If there are no objections - I will role out a solution no later than this weekend.

[Growlf (growlf)]

This release now attends to the issue where the property in gconf is not the default specified in Karmic release of Ubuntu. The application now specifically changes the gconf setting "picture_filename" to be "/usr/share/backgrounds/bg.jpg" and copies the selected file to that location.

This should resolve all "wallpaper is not changing" issues in all versions of Gnome based Linux.

[Linuxexperte (andrea-koeth)]

Hi Growlf,

I hat strictly followed your installation-instructions for your nice little app.

But the thing is: this does not work in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

My system is a 64bit Ubuntu 10.04 with kernel 2.6.32-16-generic.

After having strictly followed your installation-instruction (which went so far successfull), i wanted to use this little app for changing the background-Wallpaper. For this reason, I had copied several new Wallpapers from a personal folder inside my home-folder to /usr/share/backgrounds.

After having done this, I opened your nice little app from the menu and wanted to change the Wallpaper. I was able to select this new picture from the list. Then I pressed the button "OK" bit nothing happened. the Wallpaper stayed the same as before.

I found out, that only this terminal-command affects this change: sudo -u gdm dbus-launch gnome-appearance-properties.

why does it not work with this GDM2Setup??

Is this a bug with Lucid or what is going wrong??

Greetings
Karmicbastler

[Linuxexperte (andrea-koeth)]

just got an update in and now it works for Lucid!!! Thanks a lot.

I could now change the Wallpaper as well as the Metacity-theme.

Greetings
Karmicbastler

[Lotussteve (lotussteve)]

Hello!

I´ve got good and bad news regarding this bug:

1.) I´ve installed the newest version on the ideapad with which i was experiencing this problems and can report that it works as desired now, very fine, many thanks @growlf !

2.) I´ve shown this app to another user who just on that same day has setup his netbook with karmic + all updates, so a real "fresh" install of gdm2setup. With this scenario we ran in the following problems:

a.) The background would change as desired, but not xsplash. Looking in the directory "/usr/share/images/xsplash" i see among other things a bg.jpg with the desired picture and only one other file, a "bg_2560x1600.jpg" which is, unlike on my ideapad, no symlink, but a real file with the unwanted, old picture in it. Also i´ve got many different symlinks on my ideapad for all kinds of resolutions, he only has one.
This was fixed by replacing the real file with a symlink to bg.jpg analogous to the setup on my ideapad but should happen automatically, right?

b.) Setting from a "automatic login" (which was set with the original tool of karmic) to a login with username/password could not be reversed with gdm2setup, i had to use the original tool!

c.) Extra information: The "display user list" button, which i never used on my ideapad after setting this with a gconf-command, is not intuitive: Ticking it made the user list visible, but next time you start the tool the box is unticked and if you tick it again the user list goes away.....shouldn´t the state of this be remembered? Should i file a separate bug or did i overlook one?

Would love to help making this great app even better with this,

greetings from Austria,

Steve

[Growlf (growlf)]

1) Excellent, good to hear :)

2a) ahh. Yep. I see the reason. I was over zealous in removing code that I thought was not needed any more. It appears XSplash is hard coded at the moment to use those image names, and so symlinks are needed after all. I will put this in the next bugfix release in the next day or so.

2b) hmm. THAT is odd. I do think I know why though - and it needs to be fixed ASAP. I just confirmed that it exists on a fresh box. I am going to make a new bug for this, so that we can track the issues better.

2c) This is directly related to 2b, and will be resolved shortly.

Thank you Steve! Your assistance is very valuable and appreciated. At the moment I am missing a third-person-tester (as of last week) and so bug reports with complete information allow me to more rapidly address issues I have missed.

[Growlf (growlf)]

Bugs 541445 and 541451 filed from this report.

[Kiwited (theo-theoperry)]

Hi Growlf
I have installed the latest GDM2 Setup utility and it works just fine.

Many thanks for your work and patience.

Theo

On Thu, 2010-03-18 at 19:51 +0000, Growlf wrote:
> Bugs 541445 and 541451 filed from this report.
>

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I have 2 laptops running lucid for which setting the background images is no longer working.

One is an Averatech 3280 - this program was working up till the past few days - after recent updates through today, it no longer works - in fact the program freezes when I try to change the image. This system has been running Lucid since an early alpha release.

The other is a Dell netbook (10x) in which I just did a fresh install of Lucid (keeping my /home partition) from a USB stick containing today's Alternate release. The effect is the same - I can change the banner text, but setting the background image does not. In fact trying to do so changes the background to a default. Also the directory in which these images were installed no longer exits - /usr/share/images/xsplash

Very strange!

[Growlf (growlf)]

This is also referenced in #560130 - the issue has been determined and a solution is forthcoming. We are trying to get the patch released as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I have my Lucid systems up-to-date after the release last Thursday. The behavior I observe with GDM2setup is that I can change the login background the FIRST time - putting the proper image (as bg.jpg) into /usr/share/images/xsplash, with various symlinks - but on subsequent attempts to change the background, an empty file is copied to bg.jpg.

If someone wants to change the background, they can just copy the desired .jpg file to bg.jpg in that directory. The directory contents look like:

peter@mini:/usr/share/images/xsplash$ ls -l bg*.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-05-01 15:05 bg_1024x768.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-05-01 15:05 bg_1280x1024.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-05-01 15:05 bg_1280x800.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-05-01 15:05 bg_1440x900.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-05-01 15:05 bg_1680x1050.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-05-01 15:05 bg_1920x1200.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-05-01 15:05 bg_2560x1600.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2010-05-01 15:05 bg_800x600.jpg -> /usr/share/images/xsplash/bg.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24998 2010-05-01 22:09 bg.jpg

A background image with the same aspect ratio as the display would be best. And remember that the login dialog will obscure part of the center of the image.

I am using this image for the login (converted with gimp to .jpg) (Eurasian lynx - "Lynx lynx"):

 http://www.quantum-conservation.org/ESB/lynx-lynx.gif

[Leo (stefinovic)]

Thanks for putting in the time and effort to program this utility.
Peter's method worked for me...once I created the xsplash folder in /usr/share/images. This was on a fresh install of lucid with the latest gdm2setup. Hope this helps.

[ingo (ingo-steiner)]

Got version 0.5.3 here in Lucid and faced the same problem as described here: unable to change background image.

Solution was just to create the folder /usr/share/images/xsplash which did not exist after Installation here.

Remark: until that time I had to just copy the desired *.jpg to /usr/share/backgrounds/warty-final-ubuntu.png
Yes - that's correct put a *.jpg into a file named +.png.

[carlbrasil (carl-a-souza)]

Hello guys i hope this solution helps you!!
To change the gdm background wallpaper you gotta run gnome-appearance-properties as "gdm user" so when you select a wallpaper it will become the login page's wallpaper.
What i did to get comfortable was to add a button in the "System -> Preferences" tab so i can get to change it easy.
I just used "System ->Preferences -> Main menu" to add a new button that runs
"gksu -u gdm dbus-launch gnome-appearance-properties" as command.
Than it will ask you the gdm user's passwd that you can modify with sudo or as root.
 #sudo passwd gdm
Then you type two times the password that you want.
Don't worry it doesn't add a new user because gdm user exists already.

I hope it helps! It was my first post I will try to make new ones.

See you.
Carl

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

This should be fixed so that (a) the directory for the images is
created if it doesn't already exist, and so that (b) Carl's clever
workaround isn't needed either.

Peter Belew

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 3:30 PM, carlbrasil <email address hidden> wrote:
> Hello guys i hope this solution helps you!!
> To change the gdm background wallpaper you gotta run gnome-appearance-properties as "gdm user" so when you select a wallpaper it will become the login page's wallpaper.
> What i did to get comfortable was to add a button in the "System -> Preferences" tab so i can get to change it easy.
> I just used "System ->Preferences -> Main menu" to add a new button that runs
> "gksu -u gdm dbus-launch gnome-appearance-properties" as command.
> Than it will ask you the gdm user's passwd that you can modify with sudo or as root.
>  #sudo passwd gdm
> Then you type two times the password that you want.
> Don't worry it doesn't add a new user because gdm user exists already.
>
> I hope it helps! It was my first post I will try to make new ones.
>
> See you.
> Carl
>
> --
> gconf setting 'picture_filename' is not set correctly and GDM2Setup cannot affect a change in login wallpaper
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/536712
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
It's completely normal that you lose data on "Windows" platforms.
That's why you have a UNIX or Linux or BSD server for backups.

SMAUG: http://scruz.org/
UBUNTU 10.04 LTS April 2010
  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidLynx

[Chris (bridgeriver)]

ingo's workaround (creating the directory /usr/share/images/xsplash manually) worked for me here on Lucid x86.

[dino99 (9d9)]

is that issue still worked ?

[dino99 (9d9)]

Closing due to inactivity, and gdm2setup is not a genuine ubuntu package.