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I need to automate apt-get installation of kde-plasma-desktop which winds up installing both kdm and lightdm Display Managers.

I'm using debconf-set-selections prior to installation to set the following values:

# Default display manager:
# Choices: kdm, lightdm
kdm     shared/default-x-display-manager        select  lightdm
lightdm shared/default-x-display-manager        select  lightdm

However, when I run apt-get I still get prompted during configuration to select the default Display Manager. I've studied the configuration scripts for both packages, but still not getting it. They call db_input high shared/default-x-display-manager unconditionally, yet it only asks the question if there was a prior value for the question.

How can I suppress this interaction so it can be run unattended?

BobDoolittle
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1 Answers1

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Worst case, you can always run with DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive. This will suppress all questions

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install kdm
muru
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  • The good news is that that's indeed non-interactive. The bad news is that it configures the wrong display manager, ignoring (and overwriting) what I put into the database in advance (as specified in my Question). Bug? – BobDoolittle Oct 08 '14 at 21:32
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    I think I'll file a bug, and either it will be accepted or somebody will point me in the right direction. I'll post the bug and any resolution here when the time comes. – BobDoolittle Oct 08 '14 at 21:34
  • Bug filed here: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=339797 – BobDoolittle Oct 08 '14 at 22:20
  • @BobDoolittle KDE is upstream here, I think you should have filed a bug at Launchpad or Debian, since this looks like a packaging issue and that's where the package maintainers are. – muru Oct 08 '14 at 22:36
  • My guess is a bug in the kdm configuration script, which is why I filed it there. I could of course be wrong but that's a good place to start I think. – BobDoolittle Oct 08 '14 at 22:38
  • I notice that it doesn't matter what order the packages are installed, it always winds up prompting, and if run noninteractively it always overwrites the config database with 'kdm'. I tried removing and then reinstalling noninteractively (just) kdm, and then the same thing with lightdm. In both cases the kdm config script overwrites the database with "kdm" even if I am only installing lightdm. So it really does look like a kdm config stript bug to me. Unless somehow I'm not setting the database correctly. debconf-get-selections looks correct, but maybe there is meta-info it's not displaying? – BobDoolittle Oct 09 '14 at 14:48
  • @muru can you help me out of this problem http://askubuntu.com/questions/536075/what-does-it-mean-to-install-ubuntu-inside-window – agha rehan abbas Oct 12 '14 at 08:20
  • @muru you were right, I had to refile it with Debian. I guess the configuration script belongs to Debian packaging, rather than KDE itself. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=773293 – BobDoolittle Dec 16 '14 at 20:09