Login Window Preferences: custom welcome message does not take effect.

[JWCBBDL]

Ubuntu 7.10 Gusty Gibbon, default install, all packages up-to-date at the time of this writing.
Dell Inspiron 6000 Notebook, specific hardware specifications available on request but are probably irrelevant.

To reproduce:
On the panel which is by default on the top of the desktop,
open the system menu,
under "Administration", select "Login Window".
Under the "Local" tab, select a custom welcome message, exit.
Reboot the system.

Behavior:
Upon loading, gdm will continue to display the default message, "Welcome".
Other configuration changes to the login window take effect as normal.

To worksaround:
Edit the gdm.conf-custom file:
In GNOME, open a terminal and type "sudo gedit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom".
On a new line under the line reading "DefaultWelcome=false", type: "Welcome=" immediately followed by the desired welcome message.
Do not surround the welcome message string in quotation marks.

Etiology:
The Login Window Preferences applet correctly specifies that a custom welcome message is to be used ("DefaultWelcome=false"), but does not write a "Welcome=" value to /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-config, causing gdm to continue to use the default.

Other notes:
The Login Window Preferences applet also does not recognize a custom welcome message manually added to /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom as described in the workaround.

[jtholmes (jtholmes)]

Thank you for your report

[Oscar David Ramirez J (oscardavidramirez)]

That happed self me too, in my acer 3690 with Intel 945 has the self problem, in the last gutsy gibbon and new hardy heron

[James Harr (james-harr)]

I can partially confirm this bug in hardy. The gdm.conf-custom has the appropriate configuration changed, however gdm still does not display the welcome message. This is because the default theme for ubuntu has no welcome message reference. I have provided my patched /usr/share/gdm/themes/Human/Human.xml with the fix in place.

If it is desirable for the welcome message not to be displayed by default, may I suggest the developers modify the default GDM greeting (in the source for gdmgreeter) to be an empty string instead of being "Welcome to %n". The default GDM login screen will be the same as the current default install, but will allow administrators to change the theme using existing graphical tools rather than forcing them to edit system files manually.

[nan0dog (nan0dog)]

This bug has made it into 8.04.1 as well. Thank you Khugo for your fix. As you say, the "Welcome Message" tag is not included in the xml file. This issue is quite important in Corporate/Gov business as local policies usually dictate that you have a legal disclaimer displayed before logon. It is not only the Human GDM theme at fault. Many themes don't seem to have this tag and so ignore any custom message.

[Muhammad Takdir (muhammad-takdir)]

That happened to me. I change status to confirmed.