My company is now in the process of rolling out enterprise desktop systems (mostly rhel3 since we have some commercial software that is not quite ready for rhel4). Most of our users (ca. 120 workstations) are using RH9. I've developed a simple, extensible set of kickstart post procedures and firstboot procedures that provide a quick way to image new systems, but one thing is missing.
I haven't found a good way to deliver a common desktop image for KDE or Gnome. We want to provide each new user with a common set of desktop icons, for example. I tried using a preloaded /etc/skel, but that doesn't work very well. There are too many individual hidden files and directories where userid is imbedded. I would need to search and replace userid in a lot of files.
Has anyone in the group tackled this sort of problem, and would you care to share your methods?
What I'm trying to avoid is having to configure each new desktop manually to have a common look and feel.
-- Collins Richey Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code ... If you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -Brian Kernighan
On Jan 22, 2006, at 11:17 AM, Collins Richey wrote:
I haven't found a good way to deliver a common desktop image for KDE or Gnome. We want to provide each new user with a common set of desktop icons, for example. I tried using a preloaded /etc/skel, but that doesn't work very well. There are too many individual hidden files and directories where userid is imbedded. I would need to search and replace userid in a lot of files.
the Red Hat Desktop Deployment Guide (http://www.redhat.com/docs/ manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/desktop-guide/) claims to provide a method for doing this.
however, when i tried hacking around with gconf for a recent project, i found that it was very easy to generate rafts of error messages, so i'd recommend making one change at a time and logging into the test account frequently, so that you can back out changes when you break things.
-steve
--- If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction. - Fabian, Twelfth Night, III,v
On 1/22/06, Steve Huff shuff@vecna.org wrote:
the Red Hat Desktop Deployment Guide (http://www.redhat.com/docs/ manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/desktop-guide/) claims to provide a method for doing this.
Thanks for the reply; will peruse. Unfortunately this isn't going to help most of our users, who prefer KDE. Tis an unfortunate fact of life, that RH prefers Gnome.
-- Collins Richey Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code ... If you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -Brian Kernighan
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Collins Richey -
Steve Huff