Changing login screen - Ubuntu 9.10
 

Is it possible to change the login screen functionality in 9.10 to be similar to the older versions - where it was necessary to enter the username and password? The "pick a name" selection is very Windows Vista however, in my opinion, it is a security risk. If the machine becomes physically compromised the offender at least knows the names of the user accounts.

I have looked at Administration; Login screen. There appears to be no choice other than the default described above or an auto-login.

Thanks,

Ken

There are a number of tutorials for this found on google, however the file system is changing consistently with upgrades and you will likely experience breakage even prior to that...so the simple answer for now is no.

I agree the loss of theme-ability sucks. And worst of all is the security hole created by displaying the user's login name...what a joke! For this reason, and others, I have begun looking at other distros.

Haven't used Ubuntu in a while, so I have a lack of experience with the default Gnome environment. I can say that KDE does allow you to modify this. I always change it so that no user name is displayed so when I boot up I get greeted with just user/pass fields. If you really like using Ubuntu, you could install KDE or get the Kubuntu distro which uses it by default. That of course depends on your opinion of KDE (some people love, some people hate).

Y'know, I never thought about this, but you are right. It is a potential security risk. I have noticed that the Debian Lenny gdm login screen does not do this.

So I got curious and started googling about this issue, and I found this:
http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2009/12/...-login-screen/
That Ubuntu Tutorials site has been a reliable source of info in my experience.
I have not tried this though, since I am the only one who uses my computers.
The author also tells you how to re-enable the user list if you ever wish to.

Why not try it? I would be interested to know if it works for you. It does not work for me. gconf-editor, while still helpful, lacks some of the functionality it offers.
EDIT: well I have to eat my words. The gconftool-2 does provide greater functionality than running gconf-editor on 9.10, and indded works to stop displaying the username...though the machine name is displayed instead...which may include username. Anyway I found your post helpful and thanks.

Thanks tommcd. It worked perfectly!!!

Glad it worked for you guys!
I did not try using gconftool-2 because I did not feel that this was an issue for me. I will remember this for future reference though.

Looks like some folks have written greater functionality into a handy tool. Check it out here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1358026