(SOLVED) Guest session problems

Greetings,
I have and HP Pavillion notebook, actually mother-in-law's that I'm working on. Anyway, I just wiped the drive and installed Win7 and decided to install Zorin OS 6 for a dual boot. Install went great and I created an account for myself, logged in and set things up the way I like. One reason I installed Zorin was because I was looking to find a way to let my niece and sister-in-law use her computer without destroying the OS like they did with the last install of Win7. I heard that the Guest Session pretty much was only for accessing the internet and didn't really save anything. Great.

But somehow I screwed it up I think. I spent quite a bit of time trying the different themes in gnomenu. I also tried to create an shortcut on the desktop by right clicking Chrome in the menu and selecting the create desktop shortcut. All this did was put some sort of script I guess on the desktop that I got an untrusted warning about. I sent it to trash. Anyway that's all in prelude to saying that after several reboots, logon/logoffs and whatnot when I went back to the guest account clicking on chrome in the menubar or in the menu just made the mouse pointer do the swirly thing for a half minute and chrome never started. So, I tried installing Chromium (as chrome was already shown as installed) and that wouldn't start. I logged off and back on with MY account and then switched user to the Guest to install Firefox to see if that worked. Now there's no internet connection, and there was previously, on the Guest account and if I click on "connect to" there is nothing shown under the wireless tab. If I click add it actually brings up "editing wireless connection 1" (which is the name of the connection I use in MY user account) but everything is greyed out (which I assume is because it's the guest account).

I'll stop here and provide more specific info when needed since it's getting complicated.

I've rebooted, run windows, powered down tried logging into my account then switching to the guest, logging into just the guest on boot etc. and nothing works.

Is there a way to reset the guest account or restore it?

IF not is there an easy way to have something like a Kiosk mode or a standard account and LOCK most everything except specific programs (although I guess I could just remove most entries from the gnomenu) to keep the idiots from messing it up?

Thanks in advance

P.S. if this is the wrong forum please correct me.

Hi,

further to Swarfs tips, please take a look at these links about updating etc:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2054

Regards Wolfman

@swarfendere437,

Thanks for the info. I booted into recovery mode and ran "dpkg" it said it was going to install something like 5 new and *** updates for 398M of data. Hit yes and though the screen scrolled quickly it looked like they all failed.Something like couldn't connect or couldn't find; but at the summary it said 0 to update 0 to install. Since it only took a few seconds it didn't download anything.

Anyway, I went back into the admin account, renamed the wireless connection from "wireless connection1" to "Drouter1" which is the SSID for it, unchecked the "available to all users" button, REchecked it (you never know) then logged off admin and onto guest. Guest had an internet connection!!!!

Neither Chrome nor Chromium nor the "zorin web browser manager" would open though. The chat and mail programs did fine though. I installed firefox and that opens.


I'm on Sat service and about out of data for the month. I'll run updates in 4 days when my data resets and try your suggestions again. I'm tempted to update and leave be since it connects now, and hopefully it will do so when I move wireless home networks when I bring it to her house.

@wolfman
Quite a log of reading but lots of good info. I'll bookmark these and explore them while I'm waiting for my data reset before I attempt them.

Now, does anyone know how to make changes to the guest account that stick? I'd like to edit down the menu and place a few shortcuts on the desktop but after logging off the menu changes go away and well desktop shortcuts just don't work. I realize that's the point of the guest session but there must be a way change it as admin/root or something to make it better to one's liking.

Thanks again
back in a few days

FYI just noticed that for some reason the network connection symbol in the taskbar is gone again on the guest account BUT I can still browse with firefox though. If I go into "edit connections" there are no listings in the wireless section. Weird. We'll see if this is the same after updating in 4 days.

Danneauxs

Hi,

the best way to tinker with user accounts is to install "Gnome Tools", paste the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install gnome-system-tools

You will then find it available under "Users and Groups" in the system tools > administration menu.

Be careful what you do with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Regards Wolfman

@wolfman

You read my mind. I found a web page telling how to limit an account in Ubuntu but only found a limited version of the "users and groups" in Zorin. This looks more like what I probably need.

Thanks
Danneauxs

Hi Dan,

glad it helped, I have marked this thread as solved

Regards Wolfman

Decide to wipe drive and reinstall. Google will still not launch in guest session. Guess it's a problem with os and not something I did. Will update tomorrow and see if that helps. just wonder if anyone else had this problem with guest though I suppose most don't use it.

Thanks again