diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'HACKING')
| -rw-r--r-- | HACKING | 67 |
1 files changed, 67 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +Initial Setup +============= + +The first time a new system is booted is a special situation. There is +no user account yet, and a few basic setup steps need to be performed +before it can be considered fully usable. The initial-setup mode is an +attempt to solve these problems. + +When in initial-setup mode, gdm does not bring up the regular greeter +for the login screen, but instead starts the gnome-initial-setup +application in a special session. gnome-initial-setup offers a series +of steps to + +1. Select your language +2. Select a keyboard layout +3. Accept any End User Licence Agreements +4. Connect to the network +5. Create a new user account +6. Set the right location/timezone +7. Set up online accounts + +In terms of the user experience, we want the initial setup to seamlessly +switch to the regular user session. In particular, we don't want to +make the user enter his credentials again on the login screen. + +We can't run the gnome-initial-setup application with the correct user, +since the user account does not exist yet at that time. Therefore, gdm +creates a temporary gnome-initial-setup user, and runs gnome-initial-setup +as that user. When gdm-inital-setup is done, it then initiates an +autologin for the newly created user account to switch to the 'real' +session. gdm removes the temporary gnome-initial-setup user before +switching to the real session. + +Due to this arrangement, we need to copy all the settings that have been +changed during the initial setup session from the gnome-initial-setup +user to the real user. + +Mechanics +========= + +To enable the initial-setup functionality in gdm, set + +InitialSetupEnable=True + +in the [daemon] section of /etc/gdm/custom.conf. GDM will trigger +the initial-setup if there are no users configured yet and some other +conditions also hold. + +The session that gdm starts for the initial-setup session is +defined by the file /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gdm-setup.session. +Like the regular greeter session, it uses the desktop files in +/usr/share/gdm/greeter/applications/. + +Before starting the initial-setup session, gdm copies the file +/usr/share/gdm/20-gnome-initial-setup.rules into the polkit +configuration to provide suitable permissions for the gnome-initial-setup +user. The rules file is removed again together with the +gnome-initial-setup user account. + +gnome-initial-setup also has a session mode which activates gnome-initial-setup when a user first logs in. The gnome-initial-setup-first-login.desktop in the +xdg autostart directory utilises gnome-session to check if the user has a +gnome-initial-setup-done file in their XDG_CONFIG_DIR if they don't +gnome-initial-setup will launch with pages that are suitable for a +non-privileged user and on exiting will write the done file. + +TODO +==== |