chooser and xdmping (version 1.2.1) ------------------------------------ The software here is released under the GNU public license. A copy of this license is in the file `GPL'. The file chooser.c also contains the original copyright (X Consortium), authored by Keith Packard. The `chooser' is a modifided version of the standard chooser, with a slighty nicer 3D-ish interface. Instead of broadcasting, it allows the user to supply a host via the keyboard. This is useful when the list of machines extends beyond the limit of a broadcast, or is too cumbersome to enter on the command line (in one of the XDM config files). Version 1.2.0 (and above) additionally support a configurable drop-down list of hosts. For more information see the newly written man-pages! :) xdmping is a quick way of determining if a host is willing to provide an XDM login session. This is probably only useful in certain circumstances. Compilation is straightforward and uses the usual autoconf/automake. A typical configure command might be: ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --sysconfdir=/etc If the X includes/libraries are not found by default, tell configure about them using the --x-includes=DIR and --x-libraries=DIR options. Then simply make and make install. The example configuration is *not* installed by default -- you must do this manually: To get this to work, copy the file `xdmchoose.conf' to the SYSCONFDIR directory, specified using --sysconfdir option to ./configure. Typically this defaults to /usr/local/etc. I prefer /etc/ though. Then add/modify the following line in the xdm-config file: DisplayManager*chooser: /usr/local/bin/xdmchooser (subsituting the appropiate path to the chooser executable) The config file (xdmchoose.conf) contains all of the currently usual options. The default setup is with a background pixmap (xdmchoose-blur.xpm). The config file *must* be modified so it can find the full path of the image, or just comment the line out. The idea emerged from discussions between Phill Camp , Dave Reeve , and myself Enjoy, Fred.