[Kde-kiosk] A nice uniform desktop for all users...

[Verner Kjærsgaard]

Tirsdag den 14. september 2004 23:28 skrev Martijn Klingens:
> On Tuesday 14 September 2004 22:44, Verner Kjærsgaard wrote:
> > As I understand it, this is what I should do:
> >
> > a) create a brand new user, lets call him MasterUser.
> > b) modify his desktop to look the preferred way. No mouse theme and so.
> > c) Copy this desktop (what files?) to a place (skeleton..??) from where
> > they would act as the standard template for the users to come.
> > d)Use kiosktool to setup some simple rules. They would go
> > into /etc/kde-profile/profile1/share/config....from where they should be
> > copied to where?
> > e) Edit the /opt/kde/bin/startkde file (As I'm using SuSE9.1/KDE3.2.1).
> > At the end of that file I would add:
> >
> > "export KDEDIRS=$(kiosktool-kdedirs)"
> >
> > Create a ton of new users, all with usernames and passwords.
> > All the users are kids and teachers at our 100% linux equipped school. At
> > some point in the future it would be nice to be able to group users into
> > categories, so the teachers would get the simple desktops and the kids
> > the fancy ones :-) But for now, the above mentioned will do very fine.
> >
> > Of course, I've got too many questions and too few talents. Anyway, any
> > (however brief and short) help is appreciated. And I apologize for the
> > long posting.
>
> What you're describing is the "original" way of doing things using
> $KDEDIRS. However, Kiosk has gotten even more powerful through the use of
> user profiles. They require less setup and are harder to circumvent through
> users modifying $KDEDIRS.
>
> The new way of doing things is:
>
> 1. Log on as yourself
> 2. Start kiosktool
> 3. Create a new profile, click Setup if you like and click Next when done
> 4. In the main screen setup both the preferences and the required lockdown
> settings as you want them
> 5. Click Manage Users to link users to profiles
>
> That's it! Kiosktool copies the files to the required locations, you can
> conveniently use your own account for setting up and locking down and when
> done it just 'works'.
>
> If you need customizations that are not covered by kiosktool you may need
> to create a test account and copy over the customized config files to the
> profile dir that Kiosktool sets up. You then also need to manually lock the
> files using $i flags. For many cases kiosktool is the tool of choice
> though.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Martijn
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Dear Sir,

- thank you very much for your detailed answer. I shall indeed follow it to 
the point. I don't want anything fancy at all and as you describe it, it 
should really be a piece of cake.

- Now, I've only got one small question left; namely versions (of SuSE). 
- Say, I install a brand new SuSE9.1, update it online using YOU. 
- Will that give me a combined version of SuSE9.1/KDE3.-something that will 
work?

Best regards,
Verner Kjærsgaard

BTW: I'll keep this list informed of our progress :-)
And, I always keep logs of what I do. Such a log could perhaps be of value to 
others wanting to do a similar setup? I would only be to happy to post it 
once it's ready.