[plug] making linux desktops consistent

[Shayne O'Neill]

Ok. We have a small setup at the uni guild it works like this (Sorry I
missed the top half of this convo);-

Guild monster---(nis auth & nfs homedrives)-->"Duckmonster the app server"
----> bsd &/or deb Xterms

The most successfull part of this combo is the nis/nfs combination. The
two protocols seem made for each other.

The X terminal stuff worked well, but theres a world of diference between
running a KDE desktop and a fluxbox desktop, and this is where the plan
kinda falls apart. Fluxbox while perfectly mofo for you or I is plain
baffling for joe shmoozer.

I found two "duck terminals" (yeah, we got some bizare tech humor round
there) is about the limit before it starts really slowing down. The app
server is a intel 1.6gz with 256m mem. Ok. Its not brilliant, but costs an
all.

The research I've done onto it suggests a few possible 'solutions'. I'm
told the preempting in 2.6 works wonders. I've also garnered that the new
gnome (also 2.6 I think?!) works much nicer over remote desktop.
There does also seem to be much to be said for policy. simple themes (Ie
the over the top aqua clone is perhaps a nono) and flat wallpaper.

Other than that, for a couple of terms, its a winner.

Wierd spots: Sometimes on KDE , if a couple of terms are logged on same
user, windows have actually popped up on wrong desktops which is pretty
whacky. Evolution doesnt cope. And Mozilla gets wierd locks.

Shayne.


------------------------------------
"Must not Sleep! Must warn others!"
-Aesop.
Shayne O'Neill. Indymedia. Fun.
http://www.perthimc.asn.au

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 raven at themaw.net wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, Craig Ringer wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 2004-04-27 at 19:15, raven at themaw.net wrote:
> >
> > > > Depending on the programs being run, you'll need to make sure that only
> > > > one copy of each user account is logged in at any one time, though. Some
> > > > apps don't deal with this well.
> > >
> > > That's not acceptable. Ditch the apps.
> >
> > Tricky in this situation, as the apps in question include OO.o, Mozilla,
> > and Evolution. As we use thin client desktops, these apps are rather
> > important ;-)
> >
> > Come to think of it, I suspect it includes GNOME and KDE, too (config
> > file changes can be lost, etc).
> >
> > Personally, I'm not too bothered by a user being unable to be logged in
> > to a full GUI session from multiple terminals; it'd be nice, but that's
> > it.
>
> Point taken.
>
> > > > I actually gave up on NIS in frustration and tried LDAP auth instead -
> > > > with much success. If you use TLS, it's quite secure as well.
> > >
> > > LDAP is much harder to administer but the security is much better. I agree
> > > that LDAP is the approiate migration path from NIS.
> >
> > I find LDAP great in admin terms, actually. pam_mkhomedir and
> > directory_administrator take 99% of the work out of handing user account
> > maintenance, and for the rest I use a few small scripts.
>
> OK so now I know who ta ask when we go LDAP.
>
> Cool.
>
> Ian
>
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