Disabling lightdm guest login (was: Re: Upgrade 11.10 to > 12.04 Case - Q )

[James King]

> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:57:52 -0700
> From: Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden at fastmail.fm>
> To: lubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Disabling lightdm guest login (was: Re: Upgrade 11.10 to
>        12.04 Case      - Q )
> Message-ID: <4F9DAB50.5020908 at fastmail.fm>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On 04/29/2012 12:31 PM, Ali Linx (amjjawad) wrote:
>
>> Started from here:
>> https://www.facebook.com/Lubuntu.Official.Page/posts/372426912792390?notif_t=feed_comment
>>
>> Now, it's a thread here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1968961
>
>
> Facebook -> Forum -> mailinglist?
>
> This kind of "cross-posting" from one support medium to another to
> another does not seem to me to be efficient, appropriate or scalable.  I
> trust the Lubuntu support team will soon provide clear guidance on how
> to avoid this, so every question the Facebook folks can't answer doesn't
> then get recreated in forums, and then if the forum folks can't answer,
> recreated again in the mailing list, and then if that doesn't provide an
> answer, recreated yet again  in Launchpad?  This is clearly a rather
> inefficient way to handle Lubuntu support.  We can do better.
>
> My suggestion would be that if the team handling support in any one
> medium (IRC, mailing list, forums, Facebook, ...) is unable to answer a
> question or solve an issue, the person asking for assistance should be
> pointed directly to Launchpad (where they should create either a bug
> report, or a question for "Launchpad Answers", depending on the nature
> of the original question/issue).
>
> A more meaningful Subject line would also have been good... this is not
> an upgrade-related question at all, and what "Case - Q" is I have no
> idea.  Are there "Case - A" through "Case - P" items elsewhere??
>
> Nevertheless, I will answer one small part of the poster's questions,
> how to disable the guest login facility.  Open LXTerminal, and in a
> shell there run the command
>
>  echo allow-guest=false |sudo tee -a /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
>
> which adds one line (allow-guest=false) to the end of that file.
>
> After this, restarting lightdm will result in a lightdm greeter screen
> without the Guest Login menu option.
>
> Jonathan

Thank you for your answer. I am the one who originally posted my issue
in the Facebook forum.

While poking around in the lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf file (dangerous
for someone like me who knows just enough to get into trouble, but not
enough to get himself out of trouble), I saw that there was an
anti-alias option that was blank. I edited it in Leafpad as root
(xft-antialias=true), and that took care of the aliased fonts. I was
also pleased to see that I can choose to use a different font, so I
used UnDotum which is what I also use for my desktop and window fonts.
This helps the feel of consistency on my system.

The only things left are changing the generic computer icon for a
lubuntu icon, and getting the top login panel moved down so that it's
consistent with the rest of the operating system--or removing the top
login panel altogether, but keeping the options available elsewhere
(using large font, suspend, restart, shutdown, etc.).

I apologize for talking about the problem on Facebook, but at the
beginning, I was merely mentioning that I was starting my upgrade and
for everyone to wish me luck. Afterwards, I reported that the upgrade
was very smooth--as a matter of fact, it was much smoother than other
upgrades I'd done in the past. It was only this login screen change
that seemed to be any issue at all, and it is a purely cosmetic one,
so I didn't even expect it to get any sort of priority or attention.

The way it was handled initially (trying to solve the problem in a
very user-friendly way in the forum where the problem was posted, then
triaging it to another forum) made an extremely positive impression on
me. It made me feel like the team is genuinely concerned with helping
the users succeed with the system. I would applaud and encourage that
rather than discourage it, even with the issues that it might cause.

People should be empowered to use whatever resource is their most
comfortable at first to access help, whether it is Facebook or Ubuntu
Forums or Launchpad. At each of those places, it appears that there
are people who can answer small issues, preventing Launchpad from
being cluttered with newbie questions and complaints, and can triage
to other forums when the problem is beyond the capabilities of the
members of that forum. If I'd known that merely discussing my issue in
Facebook would result in a debate over where people should go for
support and a discussion about support protocol, I would have probably
just stayed quiet. I hope that is not what the team desires; that
people just learn to live with whatever issues are present and not say
anything unless it fits within a rigid system of protocol. But that
approach would leave a very poor impression with me, as I would be
intimidated to mention ANYTHING wrong.

I've read about other platforms where newbie (and post-newbie,
pre-expert like me) posts tend to be shelved or the post is criticized
for not following some specific protocol that isn't easily found or
made clear--often with a dismissive ultimatum that "if you don't like
it, don't use it." I always bristle when I read a response like that.
To me, that shows a lack of respect and decency. We should do whatever
we can to help everyone who uses the software to succeed.

I'm completely aware that everyone is a volunteer in this, and no one
should expect the same level of technical support one would get from
proprietary software or open source software where one has purchased a
contract. But I hope that users don't get to the point where they feel
intimidated to mention even small bugs because of fear of the team's
reaction.

Apologies for what seems to be a rant of sorts, but I really do like
Lubuntu and am thrilled to help out in any way I can and in whatever
capacity I can. I just wanted to explain how things appear to me and
how the way my issue was treated endeared me even more to the OS until
I started reading the complaints and the subsequent discussion about
support protocol.

As a complete aside, I notice that there is no default soundset for
the OS, but that may be by design and there is no intention of
creating a unique soundset; I am a composer by training and would love
to submit a sound theme for consideration in the OS if that is
something that is desired by the team.