[K12OSN] A little bit less confused...

[Joseph Bishay <joseph bishay utoronto ca>]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I've replied to them below:

> From: "David Trask" <dtrask vcs u52 k12 me us>
> Reply-To: k12osn redhat com
> I may be wron here, but I think this is the way it's done.....create
> your perfect user (profile)....and copy all the stuff into /etc/skel  
>  This is where the new user creation gets the generic desktop info.
> 
> David N. Trask

The impression I'm getting is that this does not work due to 
permission/absolute directory references. I tried copying everything from 
generic studen to smith, and it still didn't work. Copying it all to /etc/skel 
would a) also have this problem and b) ruin the basic structure for new users 
which I would want to keep.  hence why I made mr. generic and hoped to base it 
off of that model.

NEXT:

> From: Matthew Tedder <teddemc yahoo com>
> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] OK now I am *very* confused!
> You can copy (cp -R /home/generic /home/$NEWKID) and
> change ownership (chown -R $NEWKID /home/$NEWKID) for
> most applications--including all the basic desktop
> stuff.

So Matthew, would that allow things like desktop background and the kicker 
settings to copy over correctly?

> However--a few applications such as Mozilla will give
> you a hard time.  They have files in the user home
> that contain non-relative filesystem addressing in
> them.  So, you should also run a script that scans
> through all files, including within tarballs, to
> replace /home/generic{.*} with /home/$NEWKID{$1}
> (where {.*} is any text or no text and {$1} is
> whatever {.*} was).

Interesting.  I think this is the whole problem. The login process with smith 
seems to crash as it is reading certain files. Is there a way to monitor which 
files are being accessed by a user? tail -f /var/log/messages doesn't show 
anything after it switches to runlevel 5.

This method does seem to make perfect sense, assuming I can learn how to write 
scripts!  New mission I guess.

> And, this script must do it recursively and inclusive
> of hidden files.

Recursively....Memories of programming courses of yesterdays...

> BTW: Never ask if something can be done at all.  In
> software, anything logically consistent can be
> done...... Somethings are just more work than others.

I understand. I just meant it in terms of what are people doing.
Thanks.

NEXT: 
> From: "David Trask" <dtrask vcs u52 k12 me us>
> k12osn redhat com writes:

> >I have set up a generic student with specific features, namely:
> >- specific desktop background
> I let the kids change it...that way they know they're logged on as
> them....give them some ownership 
> >- started up and changed the theme for mozilla to IE, as well as the
> >start homepage and removed some of the buttons from the menu area
> 
> Do your users get to do anything themselves?  You're making way too
> much work for yourself

My thinking is this - I perfer they don't have to deal with all the setup and 
config options (especially the registration stuff in OO) because I felt it 
would be more 'professional' and 'user-friendly'. This is an elementary school, 
and we do not have a full-time computer staff member.  NONE of the teachers can 
be called computer literate, even for Windows, let alone anything else. Many 
are completely afraid of computers period.  The students themselves are not too 
competent at computers, and that coupled with no-one around at times to guide 
them was my incentive to create a smoothly-running system from the first 
login.  

Perhaps a question I want to ask is this - is there really no way they can 
cause a problem with the server/server software even with all those menu 
options and links available. I am coming from an Win NT world, where you have 
to be careful with permissions, etc and the motto is 'lock the desktop down so 
you don't regret it later'.  If I read what people are saying correctly, this 
is not so much necessary in Linux due to the way permissions are handled, non?

> >- removal of the evolution email
> icon in the taskbar at the bottom

> This can be done globally...even easier if you use IceWM

I was hoping to continue using Gnome since it looks (IMHO) nicer and I have the 
network capacity and low user number to be able to use it.

> >- removal of the 'start here' icon on the desktop
> 
> delete it from /etc/skel

Check. Thanks.

> This script doesn't actually set the homepage, but acutally allows you
> to launch Mozilla or Galeon or whatever (substitute your browser in
> the script) on a specific page.....

Thank you for the script. 

NEXT:
> From: John Ingleby <john coronet co uk>
> To: k12osn redhat com
> Joseph,
> 
> The /etc/skel directory provides a kind of template for setting up new
> users. I couldn't find any RedHat docs on it, but Googling for
> "/etc/skel" produced this and several other refs:
> 
> http://www.fr.linuxfromscratch.org/view/blfs-cvs/postlfs/skel.html
> 
> John Ingleby

John, thank you for the link.  I think a combination of modification of the 
skel directory, going in to look at the specific files to make sure everything 
resolves correctly, as well as letting the students set up things for 
themselves when it is secure is the best approach.  

Joseph