Re: GNOME skel setup

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Mon, Aug 28, 2000 at 07:55:52AM +0200 or thereabouts, Jean-Raymond.Chauviere wrote:
> 
> > I haven't been able to figure this one out. In KDE I setup the enviorment
> > then copied that KDE configuration to /etc/skel. Works great. Is there a
> > way to do the same thing with GNOME? (So all users start with the setup
> > the administrator gives them?)
> > 
> I had the same problem, and the same idea :-).
> But stupidly, gnome when I tried this a year ago, gnome stored the home
> full pathname in its customization files under $HOME.
> I didn't verify for the new release but wrote a script to install
> new user account.
> I think we missed of a real documentation, I mean decent man (5) pages
> on these files.

I am sure someone will reply, "Feel free to write them", but I'd settle
for a copy of the script you mention :)

Alternatives: 

(a) Wait for gconf, which I am told is going to solve this (along with
half a dozen other things I bitch about, so clearly it is the ultimate
app and will expand to include a mail reader). I have no idea about
this. I hope it's true :) 

(b) Have a look at Paul Cooper's Gnome Administration Guide. I believe 
he was looking for someone to take over this, owing to pressure of work, 
but he wrote up how he customised "default GNOME" for users on his system, 
and was looking for further contributions. I refuse to believe he's the 
only person to have managed the job successfully, so it looks like people 
never sent contributions in :( It resides at
	http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/~pgc/gnome
(If you have a script that works for you, that sounds like a good thing
to send for this, btw. Even if it's specific to your machines, it gives
other people ideas of how to approach it on their systems. )

(c) Look through the documentation that exists (in a manner of speaking)
on
	http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/libgnome/gnome-gnome-config.html
It needs additions, and possibly corrections. Feel free :)

Telsa, who agrees that /etc/skel/ is very cool :)