Reset home dotfiles at logout

pikimix · n00b Joined: 27 Nov 2012 Posts: 3

I origonally posted this elsewhere, then realised i was being an idiot, and deleted it because i thought i was asking one thing when it was another (does that make sense?)

Anyway, im setting up a couple of linux boxes for my gran/grandad, and they were wondering if their was a way i could have it automagicly restore their settings, as some of my family have a tendancy to change everything, and then leave : /

My first thought was to set everything up they way they like, copying those settings to /etc/skel (they will be the only user after all) and at logout, have a wee script to cp/chown everything back at logout.

Im just not sure how this could affect anything they decide to install at a later date, without them going in and copying the new files to skel every time they decide that they want to change something...

thanks in advance
edit: sorry if ive still posted this in the wrong place, seemed like the logical fit to *me* though thats not saying much...

BitJam · Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:52 am Post subject:

People usually create guest accounts to deal with this. Put the screen saver on a short timeout and require a password to get back in. You don't need a very secure password for this. It can be something short and east to remember. It is really more a reminder that guests should use the guest account(s).

pikimix · n00b Joined: 27 Nov 2012 Posts: 3

Yeah, thats the way i would normally go about it too, and i did suggest it too them, but they specifically asked me not to make multiple user accounts if i didn't have too.

Sorry, i know i forgot to mention that in the original post, but thats why im looking for alternatives.

Thanks for the reply though BitJam

mv · Watchman Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 6747

You have two contradictory requirements which cannot be satisfied simultaneously: You want that modifications made by the user are erased and simultaneously you want that modifications made by the user are kept.
The only way around this problem seems to be to make some command/button which saves the user-settings, overriding the old ones: Then it is up to the user to decide which case he wants. It could make sense to make this saving password-protected (which should not be an issue since for a proper implementation you will have to use something like sudo anyway).

BitJam · Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:44 pm Post subject:

It sounds like you might want to run in kiosk mode where nothing is saved across reboots.

I made a LiveUSB with persistence for my aunt and uncle. It could be set up so the default was that nothing got saved across reboots but if you ran a certain command (persist-save) then everything would be saved. The problem with this is that even things like bookmarks wouldn't be saved across reboots without running persist-save.