Re: propagating desktop settings across accounts and machines

[Brian Seklecki <lavalamp burghcom com>]

Sure, easy.  Use the skel file mechanism.  This ease of flexibility is why
one would run UNIX over windoze.  What you can do is setup a test user on
your workstation, customize GNOME/X-window-manager to your liking for that
test user.  Once your are happy, you would copy the appropriate files from
that user's ~/.gnome and ~/.x-window-manager to the skel directory
(/etc/skell, or /usr/share/skell).  Then when you create accounts for
students on workstations, they will automatically get a copy of the default
appropriate configs.

But as you mentioned, this could be a nightmare to setup, but it's worth a
shot!

Ideally, in a terminal based environment, you'd use something like Kerberos
or NIS authentication and NFS mapped /home file systems.  In this setup, a
user can use any workstation in a cluster and maintain their profile
settings.

--Brian

Leigh Orf wrote:

> I am going to be using Linux (RH 7.0 with Gnome) in the classroom this
> semester. The class is a beginner's how-to-get-started-with-Unix class
> which also focuses on certain weather applications (I'm an atmospheric
> science prof). I want to have each student have identical desktop
> settings when they log in so that key bindings, window managers, and all
> special settings match those of my account.  Basically, the deviations I
> make are not all that earth shattering but I'd hate to have to do them
> all by hand for each account.
>
> Is there a simple way to clone my desktop settings across several
> accounts? I don't think it's as easy as just copying the dotfile
> directories (~/.gnome*) across accounts. I would like to both propagate
> the settings across different accounts on a given machine, and across
> machines since students will be logging on to one of several terminals.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Leigh Orf
>
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