I've finally had time to set up and start using GNOME (via SuSE 7.0 full install).
I have a question to ask (jump to "--------------" line to skip to the chase), because I'd like to start work/brainstorming on a next-generation PI (interface with a (real-world) "person", instead of (one of) the user [account(s)] that s/he may use, of the sort I've dreamt about for some time:
1. One that takes into account that there is generally one person in front of a Monitor/Keyboard/Pointer at a time, and that that _PERSON_ is doing various things, has various preferences, and behaves in variable somewhat-predicatably-profileable ways. IT IS NOT A DIFFERENT PERSON USING EACH Xterm/App!
1b. One that realizes that most GNOME X-server-interactors (i.e real-person users) are at most times are acting as sole proprietors of a computer or network that they use as a PC. (This is part of the above issue, in that I need to log in as root from time to time, to change the systems time, for example [this was my first "problem" on start-up... try doing that intuitively/GUI-ly using GNOME!]... as a root user, I have the same key-binding preferences as I do as a regular user named Evan, which are the same as the preferences I have as the user-name (dbadmin) I use to run Oracle). Some things _SHOULD_ change per user-account (e.g.. home directory) and some should by default not-change for user accounts mapped to the same real-world person.
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Question:
How does the Log-in client (e.g. The SuSE post-start-X login-box, which let's you chose a desktop environment and widow managers) hand off control after you are authenticated? What user is that log-in box itself running as?
CRUX: I need to set something up that will track all interactions that a given x-client-session user has (i.e. all GUI-appellations and xterms/shells they run, where each of these has its current directory, what the user name is of each, etc.) obviously this "human predictive profiler" thing will have to run as root, but I don't know where to build it. Should it be part of the window manager, or part of the Xserver, or what? I'd prefer to do RAD than to have to do deep X11 hacking or WM stuff, so I'm hoping I can write an app that stands alone, without being hooked into any of these, and that can just listen to X Events, but... where should this kind of thing live?