Comment 44 for bug 897212

(In reply to Matthias Clasen from comment #34)
> The reason is that the setting is needed outside the session, when it can't
> be guaranteed that the home directory exists (eg automount). Your password
> is user-specific too, and isn't stored in your home directory for more or
> less the same reason.

Well, for one thing, if your home directory is on an automount it will be automatically mounted once the file is accessed, be it through systemd or autofs. It has been worked in the past without any problems, so I don't see why it should be a problem now.

As for the password, yes, it is not stored in your home directory. However, the password isn't stored locally either. It is retrieved and verified through NIS or similar services and therefore globally available and modifiable independent of the machine you are using. Your example actually is rather backing up my point than yours.

I'd be fine with dropping the .dmrc mechanism if there was an alternative mechanism to retrieve the sesssion information globally over the network, but there isn't which is really unfortunate.

Just imagine, if someone, for whatever reason decides to change their default session another time (I tend to be switching desktops/window maangers in the past quite often). They will have to go through this process over and over again.

Adrian