[LightDM] Autologin (lightdm) questions

[Robert Heller]

At Sat, 19 Jul 2014 17:32:37 -0400 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 5:24 PM, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
> > At Thu, 17 Jul 2014 17:13:19 -0400 "Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> You don't need to upgrade your entire system to 14.10. You can just
> >> pull in lightdm and, possibly, its dependencies from 14.10.
> >
> > OK, I am not very familiar with Ubuntu's packaging system and repository
> > system (I am much more familiar with RedHat, specifically CentOS, with EPel,
> > Rpmforge, and ELRepo). I also don't want to inflict an unstable system upon
> > users who are not very sophisticated computer users. One of the reasons for
> > using a LTS release is that it should be conservative and stable.
> 
> I've just had a different idea (that I should've had earlier).
> 
> You can enable the backports repository. I've just checked:
> 
> # cat /etc/apt/sources.list
> #deb http://uk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ utopic main restricted
> universe multiverse
> deb http://uk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-backports main
> 
> # apt-cache policy lightdm
> lightdm:
>   Installed: 1.11.4-0ubuntu1
>   Candidate: 1.11.4-0ubuntu1
>   Version table:
>  *** 1.11.4-0ubuntu1 0
>         100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
> 
> So it's available in -backports and is at the same version as my 14.10 version.
> 
> And its "Release" file has "NotAutomatic: yes" and
> "ButAutomaticUpgrades: yes" so you won't be pulling in anything from
> there unless you install it specifically; it's more or less similar to
> having "enabled=0" in the repo file of "backports" on RHEL/Fedora and
> installing a package with "yum install --disablerepo=*
> --enablerepo=backports lightdm".

OK, trusty-backports is enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list:
ub140464.wendellfreelibrary.org% cat /etc/apt/sources.list
..
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
..

But I can't seem to get apt-get to install 1.11.4:

ub140464.wendellfreelibrary.org% apt-cache policy lightdm
lightdm:
  Installed: 1.10.1-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1.10.1-0ubuntu1
  Package pin: (not found)
  Version table:
 *** 1.10.1-0ubuntu1 1001
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 
Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.10.0-0ubuntu3 1001
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
                                      
I've created a /etc/apt/preferences file with this in it:

ub140464.wendellfreelibrary.org% cat /etc/apt/preferences
Package: lightdm
Pin: version 1.11*
Pin-Priority: 1001

But:

ub140464.wendellfreelibrary.org% sudo apt-get install lightdm
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
lightdm is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
ub140464.wendellfreelibrary.org% dpkg-query -l lightdm
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version      Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
ii  lightdm        1.10.1-0ubun amd64        Display Manager

What am I missing?

Otherwise the system is all up-to-date at 14.04.1 (I just did an 
apt-get update;apt-get upgrade;apt-get dist-upgrade).

> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
heller at deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services