Configuring GDM

The configuration of GDM in Debian GNU/Linux is very sparse. It's located in /etc/gdm/gdm.conf but mostly empty. For those who would like to configure their GDM manually with the preferred program, i.e. vi, it get's a little bit difficult since there is no manpage for the file.

Guessing the config settings is not exactly what an admin usually does, so this doesn't help much. However, in the source distribution the configuration file is loaded with a lot of comments and commented out default settings.

This file is also distributed by Debian but not as its main configuration file. It is placed in /usr/share/gdm/defaults.conf so that an admin can read it and understand the various config settings. Additionally, GDM offers a way to confgure the program graphically. This requires the root password to be entered in the graphic window, though.