Re: KDE4.4 desktop customization for multiple users.
On Tue, 2011-08-02 at 09:54 +1000, Scott Ferguson wrote:
> On 02/08/11 01:50, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
> > On Sun, 2011-07-31 at 02:48 +1000, Scott Ferguson wrote:
> > <snip>
> >>> I think that's the hard way. Using KIOSK is probably easier and more
> >>> consistent (e.g., KDE does not normally read all the bash profile/rc
> >>> scripts). Alas, I'm flat out today through Monday so I don't think I'll
> >>> have time to answer the previous question about how we do it until some
> >>> time next week - John
> >>
> >>
> >> I'd appreciate a link to a working KIOSK for KDE 4.x - I thought it had
> >> ceased with KDE 3.x...
> > <snip>
> > That's interesting. You may be correct
>
> I wish that I were... (I'm not) ;-(
> That was an early morning/late night post. The next day I checked and
> found it's available for Sid:-
> http://packages.debian.org/sid/kiosktool
>
> I haven't tried, but it looks like it might not be easy to port to
> Squeeze. Possible, but tricky mixing libraries when you want to create
> profiles for unmixed systems.
>
> > as we have intentionally avoided
> > KDE4 by using Trinity as a KDE3 replacement
> > (http://www.trinitydesktop.org/).
>
> Noted, and I greatly appreciate your work (I use Trinity for some of my
> Eeee 701SD builds).
>
> >
> > In our case we are using VServers and bind mounting host directories
> > into the various guests. One of those directories is a central
> > configuration repository for various KDE profiles. The VServer bit is
> > irrelevant as it should translate to any multiuser environment. We set
> > KDEDIR and XDG_CONFIG_DIRS in various environment files (in a
> > non-multi-tenant, non-vserver environment, the /etc/environment fie will
> > probably do). We reference these in the PAM configuration. We use
> > environment because we were completely befuddled about why the
> > environment variables were not being set in the bash configuration
> > scripts until we learned that KDE does not invoke them. Thus our
> > reliance upon the environment files.
> >
> > We create the common settings in the default profile and then any
> > specializations in other profiles - all by manually editing the
> > configuration files. We then point to those profiles as needed. As
> > always, any user customizations are stored in the ~/.kde tree.
>
> Ah ha! Thank you for that - it should prove a very useful guide. :-)
>
> >
> > All of this is moot if KDE4 does not support KIOSK.
>
> See my correction above.
>
> > Has it abandoned
> > KIOSK in favor of simply adhering the the XDG standards? - John
> >
>
> I'm not sure of the reasons for KIOSK not being available for Squeeze,
> it's probably documented somewhere obvious... but I haven't looked, I'd
> originally just looked on the old KDE org reference pages. I "suspect"
> it may be reliant on elements of the policykit that have not yet (and
> may never) be back-ported to Squeeze. There are workaround which I've
> yet to fully document (I've posted some to debian-kde) but they're, um,
> a little messy.
<snip>
That's strange. I wonder if we are talking about the same thing as I
can't imagine that KIOSK mode does not work in Squeeze as it is a
function of KDE and not Debian. Are you referring to the KIOSK tool?
There is an actual KIOSK tool for creating these profiles and perhaps
that is missing in Squeeze. We found the tool too limited and awkward
which is why we opted to manually create the profile files. KDE then
reads and prioritizes those files as part of the core way it works -
John
>
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