Gnome settings questions

[Janyne Kizer <janyne_kizer ncsu edu>]

Hello,

I am relatively new to Gnome and I have some questions about creating a 
relatively locked down desktop environment.

Some of the things that I am looking to do are:
- remove the "Known Applications" drop down list box from the Run menu
- remove the "save current setup" from the logoff dialog box
- set up what KDE calls the Kicker panel (not sure what the Gnome lingo 
is on this one, simply Panel?)

Background:  I work for North Carolina Cooperative Extension.  We have 
about 90 remote linux servers (Red Hat 7.2 and Red Hat 9) and we are 
looking to migrate everyone from KDE to Gnome.  Our end users use 
diskless workstations and some of the models don't support OpenGL. 
Because we have a very small department to support the 1200 end users, 
we try to keep everything relatively locked down.  For example, I want 
to put specific applications on the panel and not allow users to write 
changes to their personal panel and so forth (then we will change the 
panel when as we update/add applications, etc.)

I wasn't sure what issues could be resolved with gconf and what had to 
be handled seperately.  I have read the .schemas files and tried using 
the mandatory settings but I'm not sure that they are working (for 
example, messed with the clock settings for testing purposes and set 
"gconftool-2 --direct --config-source 
xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory --type bool --set 
/apps/clock_applet/prefs/show_date true" but can still turn off date 
display and it stays off after logging out and logging back in).

Anyway, I'm glad to see that this list exists and I look forward to 
reading more.
--

Janyne Kizer
Systems Programmer Administrator
NC State University, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
Extension Information Technology