wdm.options(5)

✨ wdm.options(5) ✨

okay bestie so this is the File Formats Manual page for wdm.options, and it's literally just the vibe-check file for your WINGs display manager. let's go 🫶

💖 NAME 💖

wdm.options — configuration options for WINGs display manager

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

/etc/X11/wdm/wdm.options is the little file that holds a whole set of flags deciding how the WINGs display manager wdm(1) acts. it's giving control panel but make it text.

/etc/X11/wdm/wdm.options can have comments in it, and those start with a hash mark and run until the next newline — literally exactly like comments in shell scripts, no notes. the rest of the file is just options, and options are words separated by hyphens, with only one option per line. here's the tea on how that works: if an option shows up with the no- prefix, or if it's just not there at all, it's disabled. otherwise? it's enabled. periodt.

here are the options you can use 👑

• auto-update-wmlist — if you set this, wdm will always regenerate the contents of the session menu when it starts. it's set by default, but you should disable it if you want to manually specify the list of available window managers yourself. main character behavior, honestly.
• ignore-nologin — normally, the contents of the /etc/nologin file get displayed using xmessage (if xmessage is available), and the user gets returned to the wdm login screen after the xmessage is dismissed. but if you enable this option, wdm just starts a session as usual (after the xmessage is dismissed, if xmessage is available). no cap.
• restart-on-upgrade — ⚠️ enable this option with caution on "production" machines, fr fr. it causes the wdm daemon to be stopped and restarted on upgrade, even if the process has children (which means it is managing X sessions). typically when a package that contains a daemon is being installed or upgraded, its maintainer scripts stop a running daemon process before installing the new binary, and restart it after the new binary is installed. stopping wdm causes immediate termination of any sessions it manages; in some situations this could be an unwelcome surprise (for instance, for remote wdm users who had no idea the administrator was performing system maintenance). on the other hand, for machines that stay up for long periods of time, leaving the old daemon running can be a bad idea if the new version has, for instance, a fix for a security vulnerability (overwriting wdm's executable on the file system has no effect on the copy of wdm in memory). 💀 the wdm pre-removal script checks to see if the wdm process has any children; if it does, it is possible that someone's session would be killed by stopping wdm, so a warning is issued and an opportunity to abort the upgrade of wdm is provided. if this option is disabled (the Debian default), wdm will be stopped and restarted during an install or upgrade only if the running wdm process is found to have no children. in the event the wdm daemon is not stopped and restarted, the administrator will have to do so by hand (probably with "/etc/init.d/wdm restart", or by rebooting the system) before the newly installed wdm binary is used. so like… yeah. read that twice.
• run-xconsole — this option opens an xconsole(1) client to catch messages that would normally go to the Linux virtual console and thus be missed in many cases by the user. by default, this option is only supported in the Xsetup file for display :0 (/etc/X11/xdm/Xsetup_0), but any Xsetup script may use it if appropriately edited. iconic little messenger moment ✨
• use-sessreg — if this option is enabled (the Debian default), the sessreg program will be invoked to register X sessions managed by wdm in the utmp and wtmp files. otherwise, it is not, and the utmp and wtmp files will have no record of wdm sessions. so if you're wondering why your sessions aren't showing up… yeah that's why 🙈

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

flags controlling wdm used to be kept in /etc/X11/config on Debian GNU/Linux systems. throwback era, lowkey.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

sessreg(1), xconsole(1), xmessage(1), wdm(1)

👑 AUTHOR 👑

this manpage was written by Branden Robinson for Debian GNU/Linux and modified by Marcelo Magallon for wdm. legends only 💜

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one shipped as part of Debian GNU/Linux, dated 4 December 1998, and it lives at wdm.options(5) in the File Formats Manual. slay, stay configured, and don't touch restart-on-upgrade on prod 💅🎀