Login screen user list

[Tom H]

James Michael Fultz wrote:

> Tom H wrote:

>> "sudo gconf-editor" opens gconf-editor as root. Is root not allowed to
>> write to the conf file its GUI edits even though the edits are
>> recorded as having been made?!

>> "sudo -u gdm gconf-editor" opens gconf-editor as gdm but there are no
>> keys displayed. Is gdm not allowed even to read the keys from the
>> GUI?!

> I'm not booted into Karmic at the moment where I could try it, but does
> "gksu -u gdm gconf-editor" work? gksu should be used for starting an
> X application with alternate privileges, while sudo is used otherwise.
> gksu vs. sudo examples:
> $ gksu gedit /etc/hosts
> vs.
> $ sudo nano /etc/hosts
> Going a bit further off-topic, if you're editing a text file, look into
> sudoedit.

Thanks but except for gconf-editor, I run "su -" and ...

Answer to the first problem:

"sudo gconf-editor" and changing the "disable_user_list" to true modifies
/root/.gconf/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/%gconf.xml
when the file that controls the user list is
/var/lib/gdm/.gconf/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/%gconf.xml

I copied the "disable_user_list" entry from the first to the second
and the login screen user list was disabled. The entry did not even
exist, which means that when I first started looking, grep did not
find anything.

I now remember why I use gconf-editor rather than gconf-tool or vi.
Not only is every setting almost in a single file, but the keys often
do not even exist if they are not set; and over and above this, xml is
a pain to read and to write.