(SOLVED) Locking down appearance.

I've been using Zorin 9 now and love it. I have it on three computers at my home.

I'm the CIO for a company with just about 75 windows boxes. I'm getting ready to deploy my first linux computer at work to one of the managers who is yet unaware that they will be recieving a linux box. I doubt he'll even know the difference.

I've ported all functions and software from our standard MS workstation.

>>Now the last thing seems to be locking down appearance. I need to be able to lock desktop wall papers and window appearance. gnome-system-tools did not really help though it was a good lead, or perhaps I didn't understand how to use it. Tweak Tool doesn't seem to prevent a "Standard" user from changing their own wall paper either. This is so trivial but it's a sticking point with users who want to set backgrounds with personal pics...

And last I would like to be able to select which users show on the login screen.

I have batch files and reg keys in windows for all this but can't find an equivalent method. One blog recommended a cron job with gsettings but I want to just prevent the changes entirely.

Hi,

you can install the package "gnome-system-tools" which will add an icon in the main menu under "Users and Groups", armed with this tool you can setup accounts and how the guest accounts react with the OS, you can select how much access the guest has with regards to network or printing and other areas of the PC!!.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/66718/ho ... and-groups

To install the package via the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + t), use the following command:

Code:

sudo apt-get install gnome-system-tools

Hope it helps.

Helo wolfman, I had done this already and I don't see anything in that utility that relates to appearance. I see lot's of hardware and system related permissions but nothing related to desktop wallpaper or appearance.

Hi dpannone,

that is a bit over my head as I have never ever done it, not in this lifetime and probally not in the next, you can take a look here though, some interesting tips but I won't comment on them as like I said, I have never done it!:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/36276/ho ... wallpapers

One thought that I do have but it requires lots of work on your part, you will have to set up the system as admin and then everything will belong to "root", you will then have to adjust folders etc that the other users & groups can use accordingly and take lots of notes!. (Just a thought!).

I hope it helps!. Happy Easter.

And if ever you are looking at 'en masse' deployment:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7474

Yes Wolfman your last answers appears that is the way to do it. I'll give it a go. Thankyou.

Hi dpannone,

found this which looks really promising for you:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specification/C ... onLockdown

I also have another couple of things for you, this is for schools but I assume the principal is the same in a normal working office environment (basically read the bits you need!):

http://www.linuxschools.com/forum/index-main.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Linux_Schools_Project

Note this part from the above link:

"Limitations:
It is difficult to integrate TLSP into an existing Windows network, without changing the address space to the standard one that is used by the TLSP system."

Hope it helps!.

Makes sense - if you want to deploy a desktop that is going to work on a network then you would need to deploy a second server either using Ubuntu or CentOS as in my previous link - the great thing about CentOS is it is changing to become a rolling distro - never a need to reinstall like SolydXK. Alternatively, if you want to have the best of both Microsoft and GNU/Linux then take a look at Ulteo - set up by the man who founded Mandrake that became Mandriva - who was fired by the CEO of Mandriva when times got rough - so he set up the brilliant Ulteo:

http://www.ulteo.com

Wolfman,
Very nice find, thankyou. Yes that is the direction I'm headed with all three links. I'll post results in how-to if I come up with anything worthy.

Swarfendor,
Ulteo looks like an unkown gem, I"ll have to play with it.

Hi dpannone,

yes!, please let us know how you get on and if you have any amount of success, please post back so it will help others in schools etc. around the world to use Linux networks to save money, especially in the poorer regions of the world!.

Don't forget this has already been posted for Schools!:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7474

Another way to lock down dconf settings, this is probably what I will use for now as it most resembles the way I use .reg files in windows to lock settings.

https://help.gnome.org/admin/system-adm ... wn.html.en

Hi,

can we mark this as solved?.

How do I do that? Or do you do that?

dpannone wrote:How do I do that? Or do you do that?

Hi,

you edit the title of the first post on the thread, don't worry, I will do it now.