Hi, I'm new to this forum and pretty new to the Linux world. I'm currently working for someone and learning this as I go along and we want to be able to set up a machine so that we can display some kind of internet browser in a type of kiosk mode (without the fullscreen) on the gdm login page.

I've been able to find a browser to do that but we cannot edit how the gdm login screen boots to include the browser. I was told to try to see if I could remotely access said machine to start the browser on the same display as the gdm login which happens to use display :0. When I tried experimenting with xclock first, it would not let me run it on the same display short of me using xhost + command. I was told to try to use the xauth application to create my own authority file and allow permission but I don't know how to do this. I've tried several different combinations I've found on other forums and none seem to have worked.

I'm open to any suggestions (include direct solutions to the problem without using xauth)

Thanks

A sec of googling got me to the ubuntuforums.org
Take a look at this:
How to disable gdm and run a single gui app

I don't want to disable the gdm login. I want it so that I can open up say firefox on the same display as the gdm login so for example, if someone can't log in, then they can go browse the specified website to determine why they can't log in.

The other solution is to start two X sessions.
One with GDM (or other Desktop Manager) on :0 (default tty7)
and the other with only Firefox started on :1 (tty8)

The user had to switch from on to another by using Ctrl+Alt+F7 (tty7) or Ctrl+Alt+F8 (tty8)

Some info might be found here:
articles.techrepublic
tuxfiles
ubuntuforums.org

or just google it