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The person that introduced me to Fedora had somehow made his login screen so that instead of typing in a password he used the "connect the dots" password that's popular on phones. Eg

Example of what I'm talking about

On my touchscreen/stylus laptop, I'm interested in doing this as well. However I can't seem to find the plugin he was using, and I don't have contact with him anymore. Various searches for "Fedora connect the dots login" and "Fedora iPhone login" have unsurprisingly not yielded anything.

Does anyone happen to know the name of the plugin he was using that provides functionality like this in Fedora 15?

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  • Was he using Gnome or KDE? I ask because it could either be a whole new type of login manager or just a special one that tied into the gnome login manager.
    – nopcorn
    Aug 17, 2011 at 15:06
  • @MaxMackie He was using Gnome. IIRC the login manager looked the same as the default one just with a new option to login with this system, but I could be wrong
    – TheLQ
    Aug 17, 2011 at 22:12
  • I can't seem to find anything on this. My guess is that either he made it himself or it was a trick. I think this is way too cool to not leave a trace on the Internet :)
    – nopcorn
    Aug 17, 2011 at 23:57
  • Sadly, I have to agree with Max, I've spent quite some time digging for any hint that someone has done this. nadda... Though.... if one were to pull some code out of android....
    – Zeb
    Oct 27, 2011 at 4:32
  • @MaxMackie I know he didn't do it himself because he's not a programmer. It als wasn't a trick as I saw him use it multiple times
    – TheLQ
    Oct 27, 2011 at 14:33

2 Answers 2

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I'm not finding anything either, but I'd venture to guess that it's relatively easy to do with Gnome. Gnome 3 interface is powered by CSS and various languages, including JavaScript, Python, Vala, and C/C++. I believe it also has APIs for responding to touch screens. live.gnome.org also makes mention of there being a "swipe password" option, so it's possible/likely it's built in (or accessible by extensions).

If you know/are willing to learn some CSS and a scripting language, you can probably build it yourself. Since, as the comments have said, I doubt something this cool wouldn't leave a trace on the Internet, I'd venture to guess it was a custom thing, perhaps that a friend of his did?

If you can't/don't want to dive into the code, then I'd try expanding your search a little to Gnome 3 (instead of just Fedora) and "swipe" or "touchscreen" extensions/themes.

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Here's a quick'n'dirty solution before real login plugins can be found.

  1. Install easystroke (Easystroke tips&tricks).

  2. Now here comes the fun part. Edit /etc/gdm/Init/Default by adding

    /usr/bin/easystroke -g &

    just before exit 0

  3. Go to the greeter, you'll see the easystroke program window. Under Actions/Applications select your greeter window so that's the only program where this will work and then change from the preferences buttons etc as you like.

  4. Login normally.

  5. Run it as root. Create a gesture with text and put in your password there (As a side note. This is a really bad idea unless you are just playing around and prototyping) Create a gesture you want.

  6. Remove -g from /etc/gdm/Init/Default.

  7. Next time you logon you should be able to "autotype" your password with the gesture you made.

This is just an example how to add more login options quite easily to gdm, but most of them have some caveats.

See also: TabletPc Tips&Tricks

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