GDM notes

Add a new window manager to GDM list

To add a new window manager to GDM, in Debian Etch 4.0, do the following:

# cd /usr/share/xsessions
# cp gnome.desktop yourwm.desktop
# vi yourwm.desktop # edit to match your wm settings

(It is supposed that you had not installed the window manager from apt, synaptic or any package manager. They usually take care of gdm for you).

References: Ubuntu Forums.

The Desktop Entry Specification has the documentation of all fields in a ".desktop" file.

Auto login with GDM

Just include (or uncomment) these lines in /etc/gdm/gdm.conf (or wherever your gdm.conf file is):

[daemon]
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=<user>

Where <user> is the name of the user that will be logged in.