11.7. Setting up Desktop, Menu bar, etc the Same for Everyone When the User is Created

There are some people who think that the appearance of the "desktop" which accompanies Skolelinux/Debian-edu is not totally optimal. Maybe you would like to give all of your users another background picture, other icons on the desktop, other icons on the K-menu and taskbar in KDE. It would be great if that could be done in such a way that everything was done once and for all in a simple fashion.

The secret lies in placing the files that you want all of your users to get when each user is created, in the correct directory, in this case in the directory named /etc/skel. If your users already exist, then see Section 10.2 og Section H.4.

Everything that is placed in the directory /etc/skel will get copied to the user's home directory when the user is created. For example, if a file test.txt is placed there, then it will be put in the home directory with the correct permissions and ownership.

What we want is for everyone from the start should get a predefined setup of background, desktop, K-menu, etc in KDE. The way this is done is to make a user which serves as a template. Call this user, for example, template, see Section 12.3 to find out how to create a user. Now log in as this user and set up thing the way you want them to be. Then copy the directory that contains all of the relevant KDE configuration files into /etc/skel. You find the KDE configuration files in the directories under .kde

First create the directory /etc/skel/.kde with the command mkdir /etc/skel/.kde, then do the copying with the command cp -ar /skole/tjener/home0/mal/.kde/* /etc/skel/.kde

Everything you see in your KDE desktop environment is a setting in one or another KDE configuration file. For example, the attributes for your shortcut icons are covered in the file Desktop/something-or-other.desktop. The following is part of the contents in the shortcut for OpenOffice.org Writer

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=
Exec=/usr/bin/oowriter
Icon=ooo_writer.xpm
Name=OpenOffice.org Writer
ServiceTypes=
Type=Application

Here you can see clearly how you can make changes to attributes such as the file path to where the program is stored, what kind of picture that is to be used for the icon, etc.