Karmic GDM greeter and xsplash

Registered by Rick Spencer

This blueprint defines the changes required to implement the boot and login experience within X:
 - splash screen (xsplash)
 - gdm greeter styling

Blueprint information

Status:
Complete
Approver:
Martin Pitt
Priority:
Medium
Drafter:
David Barth
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
Canonical Desktop Experience Team
Definition:
Superseded
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Not started
Milestone target:
milestone icon lucid-alpha-2
Completed by
David Barth

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

pitti, 2009-06-21: nothing to approve here, no spec written. If you plan to just do a small theming change which doesn't warrant a full spec, please open a bug report and target it to karmic.

pitti, 2009-11-04: Does this need to be re-discussed at UDS? Or just be done for Lucid?

dbarth, 2009-11-05: needs to be re-discussed, based on what we learned during Karmic.
dbarth, 2009-11-26: reverted my wb changes to reflect what needs to be done for lucid; but this blueprint should be changed and a new lucid one created imho...

dbarth, 2009-12-03: marking superseded, see dx-lucid-xsplash and desktop-lucid-boot-experience for the rest.

Work items:
Implement xplash (DX): TODO
Design OS switcher (Design): DONE
Implement OS Switcher (as a library) (DX): TODO (P3/optional)
GDM Done Painting Signal (DX): TODO (P1)
Designing GDM skinning (Design): TODO (P1)
Skinning GDM (DX): TODO (P1)
GDM UI Layout (DX): TODO (P3)
Xsplash desktop curtain (autologin case) (DX): TODO
Xsplash gdm greeter curtain - throbber while logging, especially for login (DX): TODO (P2)
create xsplash package: DONE
create MIR for xsplash: DONE
add xsplash to cd: TODO

lucid UDS notes:

See also https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/LucidBootExperience

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/Lucid/LoginExperience

This is a follow-up to the foundations-lucid-boot-experience session.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
FOUNDATIONS TEAM THINKS FIRST USER CREATION IS MOVING TO GDM GREETER!

= User Experience Objectives for the Greeter =
 * Simple username/password UI as an option for users (out of scope for Lucid)
 * default to simple greeter if more than n (10 or so) users on the system
 * add credentials item
 * immediate password entry -- really needs to be predictable! otherwise you're prone to type your password into the user name field or the search field
 * menus at the bottom can we collect those into one menu item?
 * some confusion about moving installer functionality into gdm greeter -> not for lucid, check with foundations team
 * nice styling in the greeter (may not be achievable without compositing)
 * reviewing the boot sequence at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopExperienceTeam/KarmicLoginExperienceSpec
 * also we should discuss the 2 xsplash instances and how they could be changed / integrated into gdm

 * robert_ancell to pre-select the user if there is only one user in the list

  * will start a PAM session (necessary) which times out after 30 seconds, so will go back to user list

1. usplash will be replaced with plymouth (16 color fb for non-KMS)
2. X starts up with keeping the plymouth fb, so it seamlessly starts on top of plymouth
3. xsplash needs to look identical to last plymouth's frame
4. (possible extension): render plymouth to an Xwindow -> DX decision/work item by alpha-2

plymouth will be in the normal boot by alpha-1

The plan of record is that we will not try to integrate xsplash into the gdm greeter, as we won't have engineering resources for that.

DX Action items
 * A2+ - move xsplash into plymouth
 * A2+ - replace xsplash calls to trigger the embedded version
 * Desktop team to add greeter changes to lucid backlog (not alpha 2)

(?)

Work Items

Dependency tree

* Blueprints in grey have been implemented.