Introduction + create a custom user profile for KDE 4.10.5

[Kevin Krammer]

Hi,

On Sunday, 2013-08-18, Niki Kovacs wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Since this my first post on this list, allow me to introduce myself. I'm
> running a small IT company in South France, based 100% on GNU/Linux and
> FOSS. I'm mainly working with schools, public libraries, local town
> halls and small companies.

Very cool!

> Creating a custom profile for a desktop environment like Xfce is dead
> simple. All you have to do is create a template user, configure the
> desktop, then copy all of /home/template/.config to /etc/skel (make a
> package eventually), and that's it. With KDE, things are more
> complicated, as it seems.
> 
> Application settings are stored in ~/.kde/share/config, in a series of
> files. Now of course I could grab all these files and copy them over to
> /etc/skel. Here's a summary of the problems that arise.
> 
> Some configuration defaults in plasma-desktop-appletsrc, for example,
> use hardcoded geometry, like this:

I think in case of Plasma the only viable approach is scripting.
See [1] and [2]

> Some configuration details seem to hardcode the user, like here for
> example:
> 
> [Containments][1][Applets][27][Configuration]
> Url=file:///home/kikinovak

You can probably make that depend on an environment variable instead
Url[$e]=file:///$HOME

> When I configure Thunderbird as a default mail client, this gets
> reflected in ~/.kde/share/config/emaildefaults, which looks like this:
> 
> [Defaults]
> Profile=Par défaut
> 
> [PROFILE_Par défaut]
> EmailClient[$e]=thunderbird
> ServerType=
> TerminalClient=false
> 
> Now my system is in french, hence the profile name. But my users are not
> all french, they also use english and german on their desktops.

Hmm, that is a tricky one.
One thing that might work is locale specific keys

[Defaults]
Profile[fr]=Par défaut
Profile[de]=Standardeinstellung

[PROFILE_Par défaut]
EmailClient[$e]=thunderbird
ServerType=
TerminalClient=false

[PROFILE_Standardeinstellung]
EmailClient[$e]=thunderbird
ServerType=
TerminalClient=false

> I've been googling the best part of a sunday morning, and I found quite
> some information. Even a KDE administration guide, which I read from
> first to last page:
> 
> http://techbase.kde.org/KDE_System_Administration
> 
> Unfortunately the information contained in this document is somewhere
> between puzzling and outdated. For example, it mentions Kiosktool, which
> looks like a nifty tool, only it's nowhere to be found in the download
> section of kde.org.

Yeah, unfortunately we "lost" its maintainer at some point and nobody has 
stepped up so far.
The Kiosk Framework still works though it part of KDE's configuration handling 
framework KConfig.

> I'm a little bit stuck on this one, and I'd be grateful for any help
> and/or suggestion.
> 
> Cheers from the sunny South of France,

Btw, the French KDE community is quite active, especially in the south of 
France. I think there is even a regular meetup in Toulouse once a month or so.

Cheers,
Kevin

[1] http://techbase.kde.org/KDE_System_Administration/PlasmaDesktopScripting
[2] http://aseigo.blogspot.co.at/2009/09/scripting-plasma-desktop.html

-- 
Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer
KDE user support, developer mentoring
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 190 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde/attachments/20130818/aa30c9c5/attachment.sig>
-------------- next part --------------
___________________________________________________
This message is from the kde mailing list.
Account management:  https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde.
Archives: http://lists.kde.org/.
More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.