System wide 'standard' desktop

[Bryan Tonnet <btonnet bigpond net au>]

Just a quick one.  I'm looking to put together a customised desktop to deploy as a standard for all new users on our Linux desktop machines.  In other words, a new user to the machine, logging in for the first time, will get particular panels, each having particular objects/menus in them, there wll be a few desktop application icons, a standard (corporate) background, yada yada.

Having used Gnome for a while, I expected it to be a simple exercise, or at most, some mucking about transposing one desktop on top of another.  I have not been pleasantly surprised to find that there seems to be no way to do this, except via gconf.  Apart from the fact that I can't get my head around aspects of gconf (making a new panel and populating it comes to mind), it would seem to be a very time consuming and labourious process.

I've trawled through some postings found in Google, and in this list, but I've not seen anything yet to give me a feeling that there is another way.  Can someone here confirm that the only way to make standard, default desktop/panel(s)/menus is via gconf/gconftool?  If so, is there a front end for gconf that can make this process more streamlined?  Failing even that, does someone have a step-by-step for gconf.  I've read the Gnome admin manual, but I'm afraid it's far too general for me, I would need specific examples of how to make, say; 

a top edge panel with v.small icons and hide buttons.  In this panel is a customised menu as well as the clock on the right hand side, followed by the monitor icon, and a customised help icon.

I'm sure you get the idea.  Anyway, thanks for any help in advance.  I'm using Gnome 2.2 on RedHat 9.

Bryan Tonnet
bryan tonnet org