[SOLVED partially] mouse pointer "missing" on login screen

[Jon LaBadie]

On Sat, May 07, 2022 at 06:54:32PM -0700, Tom Mitchell wrote:
>On Sat, May 7, 2022 at 2:53 PM <ubuntu at howorth.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>> ubu at labadie.us wrote:
>> > On Fri, May 06, 2022 at 03:15:02PM -0400, Jon LaBadie wrote:
>...
>> > > On the login and password entry screens I'm missing the
>> > > icon for the mouse pointer.  Instead I have a semi-opaque
>> > > white square.  Functional, but not very accurate.
>....
>> > I read that gdm uses the "adwaita" icon&cursor themes by
>> > default.  So I looked into the adwaita packages available:
>> >
>> > $ apt list 'adwaita-icon-theme*'
>> > Listing... Done
>> > adwaita-icon-theme/jammy,now 41.0-1ubuntu1 all [installed,automatic]
>> > adwaita-icon-theme-full/jammy,now 41.0-1ubuntu1 all [installed]
>...
>> > The full version of adwaita, adwaita-icon-theme-full, was not
>> > installed, only the basic version, adwaita-icon-theme.
>> >
>> > I installed the full version and the login screen mouse pointers
>> > appeared.
>....
>> Kudos for solving the problem and for the thorough testing :)
>
>Yes Kudos.
>This has been a forever "feature" that I just lived with.
>I did look in the log files and saw no "missing something" hint.
>I lived with a white block "pointer" but at least one needs to
>be included in adwaita-icon-theme perhaps a "star" or something functional
>for login to not have an identical file duplicated in two packages.
>
>I have upgraded in place multiple times so it might be an update thing
>and not a clean install topic.
>
>Thank you.
>

Follow-up:

My install was a to new hardware, not an upgrade.

I have filed a bug report via launchpad.  I'm new to
Ubuntu and hope this was the correct venue.

More specifics on the needed files.  The two adwaita-icon-theme
packages seem to have no common ordinary files.  Both install
mostly (entirely?) into /usr/share/icon/Adwaita.  The automatically
installed "basic" package has about 1900 icons, the "full" package
adds about 4100 more.

Only the "full" packages includes a "Adwaita/cursors" directory.

If trying for a minimal work around, two files under "cursors" are
needed, "left_ptr" and "xterm".  The gdm mouse pointer changes to
the xterm vertical bar inside the login name and password fields.

There are also several sym-links to these cursor files, "arrow",
"default", and "top_left_arrow" linked to "left_ptr" and "text"
linked to "xterm".  I didn't explore which name gdm looks for.

Again, if going minimal, the cursor files have identical checksums
on several other, non-ubuntu, systems.
  
Jon

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  ubu at labadie.us