Bug#504428: /usr/sbin/gdmsetup: gdmsetup is not useful if /etc/gdm/gdm.conf does not exist

[Tim Richardson]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.20.7-4
Severity: normal
File: /usr/sbin/gdmsetup

if /etc/gdm/gdm.conf does not exist then gdmsetup reports a lot of errors to console and can't save any settings.

That is, changes made in gdmsetup are not preserved, if you exit and restart it.
gdmsetup saves its changes in /etc/gdm/gdm.conf as far as I can tell

I think correct behaviour should be to restore a default /etc/gdm/gdm.conf if one does not exist.

It's surprisingly difficult to restore the default gdm with package management tools since dpkg-reconfigure gdm doesn't work, and reinstalling the package from synaptic doesn't help either. 



-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser                3.110             add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.24            Debian configuration management sy
ii  gksu                   2.0.0-5           graphical frontend to su
ii  gnome-session [x-sessi 2.22.3-2          The GNOME 2 Session Manager
ii  gnome-terminal [x-term 2.22.3-3          The GNOME 2 terminal emulator appl
ii  libart-2.0-2           2.3.20-2          Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0            1.22.0-1          The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libattr1               1:2.4.43-1        Extended attribute shared library
ii  libc6                  2.7-15            GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2              1.6.4-6.1         The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3            1.2.1-4           simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2       0.76-1            simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdmx1                1:1.0.2-3         X11 Distributed Multihead extensio
ii  libfontconfig1         2.6.0-1           generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6           2.3.7-2           FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libglade2-0            1:2.6.2-1         library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0           2.16.6-1          The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0      2.20.1.1-1        A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgtk2.0-0            2.12.11-4         The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libpam-modules         1.0.1-4           Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime         1.0.1-4           Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g               1.0.1-4           Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0          1.20.5-3          Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  librsvg2-2             2.22.2-3          SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  librsvg2-common        2.22.2-3          SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libselinux1            2.0.65-5          SELinux shared libraries
ii  libwrap0               7.6.q-16          Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6               2:1.1.5-2         X11 client-side library
ii  libxau6                1:1.0.3-3         X11 authorisation library
ii  libxdmcp6              1:1.0.2-3         X11 Display Manager Control Protoc
ii  libxext6               2:1.0.4-1         X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxi6                 2:1.1.3-1         X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1           2:1.0.3-2         X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxml2                2.6.32.dfsg-4     GNOME XML library
ii  lsb-base               3.2-20            Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  metacity [x-window-man 1:2.22.0-2        A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  twm [x-window-manager] 1:1.0.4-2         Tab window manager
ii  xterm [x-terminal-emul 237-1             X terminal emulator
ii  zlib1g                 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12 compression library - runtime

Versions of packages gdm recommends:
ii  gdm-themes                   0.6.1       Themes for the GNOME Display Manag
ii  whiptail                     0.52.2-11.3 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii  xserver-xephyr               2:1.4.2-7   nested X server
ii  xserver-xorg                 1:7.3+18    the X.Org X server
ii  zenity                       2.22.1-2    Display graphical dialog boxes fro

Versions of packages gdm suggests:
ii  libpam-gnome-keyring          2.22.3-2   PAM module to unlock the GNOME key
ii  locales                       2.7-15     GNU C Library: National Language (
ii  pm-utils                      1.1.2.4-1  utilities and scripts for power ma

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