Joachim Frieben wrote:
> Please don't drag upstream X.org into this, xdm is a horror
upstream is
> glad gdm/kdm exist and merely continue shipping xdm as something for
> system builders..
>
> it isn't valuable or valid.
>
> Dave.
Nevertheless, a user who simply wants a plain X environment is encumbered by packages he
hasn't asked for [GDM + GNOME requires] without even the possibility to dismiss them
during install.
I suppose that a user who deliberately unchecks GNOME and KDE does know what he wants and
does and imposing GDM onto him is against the often cited 'freedom of choice'
unless you consider tracking down and uninstalling the related packages by the user post
install as a reasonable duty.
I have used XDM for a couple of years back when Red Hat Linux still booted into runlevel
3 by default, and I had no complaints about it.
Or maybe they just unchecked both because the words "GNOME" and "KDE"
mean nothing to them, coming from a win/mac background. Or maybe they
aren't used to their trackpad's behavior under linux and uncheck one of
them (both aren't checked by default, IIRC) accidentally. If the user
is truly advanced enough, there are other and IMO better ways to get the
exact package set that they want. Such as kickstart, re-spinning, etc.