gnome preference dialog for gdm user prompt

[timotheus2]

I have accomplished this before but have managed to forget, and cannot find an answer on-line. I know that it is possible because I have one Ubuntu 10.04 machine that is configured this way.

I want GDM to prompt the user to enter their username via a text field, and then a password, instead of displaying a list of users to choose from.

One way to configure GDM's appearance is to run the following from a terminal:
gksudo -u gdm dbus-launch gnome-appearance-properties

If I remember correctly, there is a different dialog to run than "gnome-appearance-properties" that allows changing whether GDM prompts for a username or displays a list. But I do not know what it is.

[sisco311]

Hi and welcome to the forums!

You have to set the value of the /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list gconf key to true.

To disable the user list, run:

sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list "true"

To (re-)enable the user list, run:

sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list "false"



Of course, if you wish, you can use gconf-editor (GUI) to set the value of the key:

gksu -u gdm dbus-launch gconf-editor

If the above command fails with a "Cannot open display" error, run:

xhost +SI:localuser:gdm
then try it again.

[timotheus2]

Thanks. I found the application GDM2Setup (package python-gdm2setup).

The application has a checkbox on the first tab named "Display user list a login" that does what I want. I expect that the manual gconf entry would have worked also.