Bug#211760: gdm: another day, another syntax

[Amelia A Lewis]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.4.4.7-1
Severity: normal
Followup-For: Bug #211760

Okay.  So gdm is unifying with kde, and therefore instead of running a
script in /etc/gdm/Sessions called Gnome, it loads a Windows 3.0
initialization file from /usr/share/xsessions, called gnome.desktop.

Fine.  There's one and only one "Exec" entry in the section [Desktop Entry],
so there's one and only one program that can be run.  In previous versions,
after sufficient pain, suffering, and wandering bewildered around the
miserable configuration files looking for clues (or perhaps just one clue),
it was possible to find the ssh-agent -- gnome-session line, and realize
that it was broken (missing an ssh-add, are we?), then modify for use of
keychain.

Now, keychain is smart enough to bring together ssh-agent and ssh-add, since
either is worthless without the other, but there are two problems: 1) on a
multi-user system, how does one determine which ssh identities to load,
per-user? and 2) there's no bloody way to start the damned thing anyway. 
Oh, and there's a third problem: if someone is *not* using gnome, then they
prolly *don't* want to use ssh-askpass-gnome or gtk-askpass-led, now do
they?

Problem: those of us with multiple machines want to load up our identities
using ssh-agent and ssh-add (or let keychain handle both), so we want it to
happen in the session load.  gdm keeps randomly changing things so that any
given solution works no more than six months at a time.

It appears, on investigation, that something on the order of adding a
"Gnome" scripty to /etc/gdm/PostLogin or /etc/gdm/PreSession might stand
some chance of working.  Perhaps we can even change the Default scripty. 
The PostLogin script is marked as 'runs as root', so it isn't clear that
this is quite what we want, but in order to test, we have to finish writing
this up and send it off (and take a chill pill) in order to log out and play
silly-a** games to get ssh un-broken, *again*.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.24-1-686
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser              3.52                Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf              1.4.22              Debian configuration management sy
ii  dpkg                 1.10.20             Package maintenance system for Deb
ii  gnome-session        2.4.2-4             The GNOME 2 Session Manager
ii  libart-2.0-2         2.3.16-3            Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0          1.4.1-1             The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0         2.4.3-1             Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0       2.4.3-2             The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                2.3.2.ds1-11        GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgconf2-4          2.4.0.1-4           GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0          1:2.0.1-13          Library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0         2.2.3-1             The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0          2.4.0-10            The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0    2.4.0-3             A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0         2.4.0.1-10          The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0       2.4.1-5             The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgnomevfs2-common  2.4.1-5             The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgsf-1             1.8.2-6             Structured File Library - runtime 
ii  libgtk2.0-0          2.2.4-3             The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6              4.3.0-7             Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  liborbit2            1:2.8.3-2           libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpam-modules       0.76-18             Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime       0.76-18             Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g             0.76-18             Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0        1.2.5-2.1           Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0             1.7-4               lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  librsvg2-2           2.5.0-2             SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libsm6               4.3.0-7             X Window System Session Management
ii  libwrap0             7.6-ipv6.1-3        Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6             4.3.0-7             X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxext6             4.3.0-7             X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii  libxml2              2.6.8-1             GNOME XML library
ii  metacity [x-window-m 1:2.6.5-1           A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  multi-gnome-terminal 1.6.2-5             Enhanced the GNOME Terminal
ii  sawfish [x-window-ma 1:1.3+cvs20031104-4 A window manager for X11
ii  xlibs                4.3.0-7             X Window System client libraries m
ii  zlib1g               1:1.2.1-5           compression library - runtime

-- debconf information:
  gdm/greeter: standard
  gdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
  shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm