Help customising Fedora for my grandfather.

[Robert L Cochran]

My mother-in-law might benefit from some of the answers this thread 
generates if I set her up for Fedora at some time in the future. This 
would also help some handicapped folks with missing arms and/or bad 
coordination like several I know at my office.

For 1) it sounds like you want to remove the Lock Screen icon to make it 
easier for your grandfather to log off. I don't have an answer to the 
actual question, just another question to pose:

Is there a way for him to be automatically logged out after a certain 
period of inactivity, like 15 minutes? This way he can simply walk away 
from the machine and won't need to log out. I mean, why force someone to 
log out in the first place? There are situations when you don't want to 
bother with that stuff, and this seems like one of them.

Similarly, is there a way to automatically log him in if he presses a 
keyboard key or moves the mouse?

Also, you ARE using an optical mouse, right? I believe optical mice are 
much easier to control. Who wants the frustration of a regular mouse.

Bob


Jon Atkinson wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> For Christmas this year, I bought my grandfather (85 years young) a 
> second hand computer. It's a 1gHz/128mb/20G/Nvidia Geforce2 system, and 
> I decided to put Fedora on it.
> 
> My reasons for this are that I can lock down this box better than I can 
> a Windows box, no threat from email viruses, pop up blocking in Mozilla 
> and the fact that I can log in from university and fix his computer if 
> anything goes wrong.
> 
> However, I would like to pick everyone's brain about a few things:
> 
> 1) Is there any way to remove the "Lock Screen" menu item. I've taught 
> him to log off, but the menu items are just a little too close for 
> comfort, and his hands shake quite badly, so removing this would be a 
> huge plus. In addition, is it possible to put blank space (separators, I 
> guess) in the main menu so that it's easier for him to click the items?
> 
> 2) Is there any way to switch item selection in nautilus to 
> single-click? I've tried to put everything he might use on the desktop 
> (evolution, mozilla, home folder), but like I said he has some quite bad 
> motor problems in his hands so being able to single click on desktop 
> items would be really great for him.
> 
> 3) He's accessing the internet with a 56K modem, which is ideal for his 
> needs. Can anyone suggest a dialer application which is nice and simple 
> for him to use. Currently he's using the 'Network Device Control' menu 
> option, but basically there's just too much complexity and too many 
> points of possible failure for me to be comfortable with him using it. 
> I've used wvdial in the past, and it was nice and simple, and a quick 
> google doesn't turn up and GTK frontends. The ability to remind him that 
> he's still connected if the connection is idle for a certain amount of 
> time would be a bonus also.
> 
> Thanks (I ramble a little), and if anyone has any other ideas/advice in 
> this area it would be much appreciated.
> 
> --Jon Atkinson
> 
> 
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