How to take a screenshot of the login screen?

[Greeface]

I was wondering how I would go about taking a screenshot of my GDM Login screen. The 'Print Screen' key didn't work, but I kinda expected that.
Thanks

[aysiu]

I think some kind of emulator helper program (like Qemu) might help. I'm thinking you'd boot a live CD through Qemu qemu -cdrom /dev/cdrom install the theme you want, log out, then take the screenshot...

[carbon-12]

sudo apt-get install xnest
gdmflexiserver --xnest

Then System -> Take Screenshot

[benplaut]

sudo apt-get install xnest
gdmflexiserver --xnest

Then System -> Take Screenshot

scratch that last step, just do prt-scrn and alt

and no, i don't think there's a way to get the xnest res higher :mad:

[Greeface]

Hey,
When I do 'gdmflexiserver --xnest' it says "Cannot start new display. You do not seem to have the authentication needed for this operation. Perhaps your .Xauthority file is not set up correctly."
Any ideas?
Thanks

[carbon-12]

scratch that last step, just do prt-scrn and alt

and no, i don't think there's a way to get the xnest res higher :mad:

In Xnest, I'm able to change the resolution using -geometry HxW. For example:

Xnest :1 -geometry 1024x768

would give me a window 1024x768. :) Can't figure out how to get it to work with gdmflexiserver though. :(

[carbon-12]

Hey,
When I do 'gdmflexiserver --xnest' it says "Cannot start new display. You do not seem to have the authentication needed for this operation. Perhaps your .Xauthority file is not set up correctly."
Any ideas?
Thanks

Hmmm thats strange, that only happens if I try to start gdmflexiserver with sudo. Your doing this as a user right? This all seems to work on my machine:

http://img496.imageshack.us/img496/662/gdmxnest7zu.jpg

To be honest, I'm not really sure what else the problem could be (I'm not 1337 enough :( ). Someone whos a lot smarter than me will proably come along though :)

[carbon-12]

OK I just tried something different and it seems to work with user and sudo, so maybe this might solve your problem.

gdmthemetester console /usr/share/gdm/themes/THEME_NAME/

For default Ubuntu,
THEME_NAME = Human

and just:

ls /usr/share/gdm/themes/

for the other ones. Hope that helps.

[Greeface]

Ah, okay. I was doing that as root and that was my problem. Thanks for all of the help!

[matthewburke]

Hey,
When I do 'gdmflexiserver --xnest' it says "Cannot start new display. You do not seem to have the authentication needed for this operation. Perhaps your .Xauthority file is not set up correctly."
Any ideas?
Thanks

I actually get the same error. Only I have tried it both as root and as myself. It works fine if I boot normally into gnome. I get the error when I am in a gnome XGl compiz session. Can anyone help me with this.

Here's the error:
15441

[tacubuntuforums]

gdmthemetester's help says:

"..If you set the environment variable XNESTSIZE to <width>x<height> (e.g. 800x600)
you can test the greeter at that resolution..."


After a while of trying to use it, NOT IMMEDIATELY AFTER (maybe because later I used export for the variable) it worked, at least for the login screen, because a persistent error doesn't let me login with any of the

gdmthemetester <environment> ...

different options

I also tried to use gdmXnest with a comand line for xnest but another error doesn't let me continue. This time it seems that cannot use the keyboard. Maybe that's because my gnome configuration does not correspond to that of Xnest, I use non-american keyboard. But I don't know if this is the reason.

the messages in my terminal command line say things like:

** (gdmXnest:5801): WARNING **: Can't exec, trying Xnest
Couldn't get keyboard.

or

"(gdmgreeter:5854): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_hide: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed"

the moment I start typing the username in all different ways I tried to use the gdmXnest command options.

[jjross]

I followed this to get a screenshot of my GDM screen

Capturing your GDM screen

Once you masterpiece is done, you will need a screenshot. This part is a bit tricky as you have already logged off and do not have access to The Gimp o any other graphical screen capture application.
The best way around is to create a small script that switches from the text console to the graphical scren and takes the picture automatically. This script can be created by issuing the following command in your console: echo "chvt 7 ; sleep 5 ; XAUTHORITY=/var/gdm/:0.Xauth DISPLAY=:0.0 import -window root /tmp/gdm-shot.png" > /tmp/capture[[TableOfContents]] Note: This assumes your login screen is in VT7, meaning that you press CTRL+ALT+F7 to switch to your graphical screen
Now log off to the GDM screen and hit CTRL+ALT+F1 to switch to your text console. Log in as root and type sh /tmp/capture. The screen will switch to GDM and after five seconds you will hear a BEEP. If everything worked as expected, your screenshot will be located at /tmp/gdm-shot.png
Note that import is part of the ImageMagick package .
This is located at this site http://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt/Tutorials/GdmThemes#head-c88c5d81cb55ce0da1b121759067d547f1e7748c

[RawMustard]

In case anyone was still wondering how to set the size when testing GDM login screen.
Just type

export XNESTSIZE=1024x768
and then
gdmthemetester console /usr/share/gdm/themes/ThemeName/

cheers!

[tacubuntuforums]

As I said before, in my system:

export XNESTSIZE=<width>x<height>
gdmthemetester console /usr/share/gdm/themes/<MyThemeName>

does not work for loging in. It shows the login screen that size, but after introducing the user name, you can't continue.

Here's the message I receive when the login screen appears::

(gdmgreeter:4278): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_hide: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

[RawMustard]

Sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to do. Why would you want to login this way? I only posted what I did because I thought people were having trouble setting the size for screen shots and such.

[nowshining]

installed xnest went to terminal typed gdmflexiserver --xnest opened up a new display area - awesome by the way.. :) an it worked now I gotta crop the thing tho..

[exploder]

I almost have it. If I can just figure out a way of not having the panel show up in the screenshot.

[exploder]

I used The Gimp to take the screenshot and everything turned out good!

Thanks everyone, for all of the help!