[Bug 29389] Re: fails to install -- possibly due to implicit dependency on default-display-manager?

[Zooko O'Whielacronx]

I don't really know how to answer the question of "what version of Ubuntu".  It was some combination of packages drawn from breezy and/or dapper during the dapper process.  The version of the gdm package was 2.13.0.5-0ubuntu2.

I kind of feel like you aren't trying very hard to investigate the problem.  Notice that when I installed gdm that it printed an error message to stderr saying that it can't grep a file named "/etc/X11/default-display-manager".  Is it a requirement that such a file exist when you install gdm?  If it is a requirement, then shouldn't the gdm package depend on a package that provides such a file?  If it isn't a requirement, then shouldn't the attempt to grep the file be quietened?  Wouldn't it be fairly quick to examine the install script and see what might go wrong if /etc/X11/default-display-manager doesn't exist?

I could attempt to reproduce this only by potentially destabilizing one of the systems that my family regularly uses, so I am reluctant to do so.

Let me put it this way: 

1.  the gdm package does not depend on any package which provides a file named "/etc/X11/default-display-manager".

2.  the gdm package install script attempts to grep such a file

3.  ipso facto: this is a bug, right?  Or is there some unusual situation where it uses such a file if it exists, but it doesn't require such a file?  If so, then the grep should be quietened.

P.S.  As a long-term Free Software developer -- and a commercial software developer -- I am sympathetic to the problem of receiving bug reports which are insufficiently informative or which are irreproducible.  I am doing my best to provide you with a useful bug report.
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fails to install --  possibly due to implicit dependency on default-display-manager?
https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/29389