Either with XFt or without, gdmsetup (run as root) crashes. When stated without XFt, a window appears and immediately disappears.

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# gdmsetup

** (gdmsetup:10142): WARNING **: Cannot open font file for font Verdana 10
# GDK_USE_XFT=0 gdmsetup

Gdk-ERROR **: The program \'gdmsetup\' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was \'174\'.
  (Details: serial 1190 error_code 174 request_code 152 minor_code 8)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
aborting...

(process:10157): Gdk-ERROR (recursed) **: The program \'gdmsetup\' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was \'174\'.
  (Details: serial 1225 error_code 174 request_code 152 minor_code 8)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
aborting...
Multiple segmentation faults occurred; can\'t display error dialog
# 


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gdm-2.4.0.11-alt2