Bug#241096: Two weeks later and still no high urgency gdm update

[grok]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.4.1.7-1
Severity: normal
Followup-For: Bug #241096


Regarding the snafu'd gdm 2.4.4.7-1:

I really appreciate being able to finally "solve" this major problem
with gdm by reading this conversation thread (I finally gave up
experimenting and downgraded to 2.4.1.7-1 from http://snapshot.debian.net/)
-- and yet one more time I am amazed that there is no high-urgency
response to this major problem with a key Debian Gnome package, on
behalf of the maintainers (I'm responding to a two-week-old thread). It
doesn't help either to read the too usual "well, I solved it all myself
-- so what's the problem?" type of response.

It doesn't appear to be obvious to some that all responses to such
problems should always be taken from a newbies' POV (forget about
timeliness), as regards ease-of-solution/implementation. Fact is, it
would've probably taken me many more hours to actually get to Gnome thru
gdm in other than "failsafe" mode, and I can imagine the incredible
frustration this "easy" problem could cause many people -- especially in
the light of GNUnix' chronically obscure/obscurantist documentation (yes
I know it's improving; still... anyone ever heard of "executive"
summaries/overviews, for one..?)

I certainly appreciate how far GNUnix and Debian have gotten; how
momentum is being maintained by a likely smaller pool of developers
since the "dot.com" crash; how the work on a universal installer and the
desktop are making Debian and GNUnix all the more accessible to
Microsoft minions, yearning to be free; Knoppix; udeb; the all-important
Social Contract... but snafus like this one, the delays around i.e.
Sarge -- they all point to Debian/GNUnix developers laboring still in
some universe of ad hoc heroics while missing some fundamental points
yet.

We really need a better roadmap than we have. We really need to think
Debian out better than its been thought out up to this point. Whatever
work has been done -- all good and dandy -- but we need to prioritize
things that are obviously too far down some important people's priority
lists -- and we need to make these changes EXPLICIT and permanently part
of Debian.


-- grok.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.20

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser                     3.52         Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf                     1.4.21       Debian configuration management sy
ii  dpkg                        1.10.20      Package maintenance system for Deb
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  libaudiofile0               0.2.6-3      Open-source version of SGI's audio
ii  libbonobo2-0                2.4.3-1      Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0              2.4.3-2      The Bonobo UI library
ii  libbz2-1.0                  1.0.2-1      A high-quality block-sorting file 
ii  libc6                       2.3.2.ds1-11 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libesd0                     0.2.29-1     Enlightened Sound Daemon - Shared 
ii  libgconf2-4                 2.4.0.1-4    GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libgcrypt1                  1.1.12-4     LGPL Crypto library - runtime libr
ii  libglade2-0                 2.0.1-6      Library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0                2.2.3-1      The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0                 2.4.0-9      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  libgnutls7                  0.8.12-5     GNU TLS library - runtime library
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  libjpeg62                   6b-9         The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  liborbit2                   1:2.8.3-2    libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpam-modules              0.76-16      Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime              0.76-16      Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g                    0.76-16      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  libtasn1-0                  0.1.2-1      Manage ASN.1 structures (runtime)
ii  libwrap0                    7.6-ipv6.1-3 Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libxml2                     2.6.7-1      GNOME XML library
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/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
  shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm
  gdm/greeter: standard