FBSD 5.2-1 NIS/YP KDE

[Martin Brecher]

RA Cohen wrote:
[...]
> I have been successful in all aspects but one:  client logins
> default to the most basic window mgr (tvwm I think). There are
> approx. 400 potentiaol users total over 65 workstations (a
> school environment). How can I make all of them default to KDE
> without manually going into each and every central home
> directory to set this? Do I need a Perl sctript to do this? How
> can I get a new user addition to default to KDE?
[...]

There are many ways to achieve this.

As you have all the home folders in a central location, it would be 
easiest to replace every user's .xsession/.xinitrc files with one 
calling startkde.

For new users to already have this custom file, place it in 
/usr/share/skel/ with a name of dot.xinitrc resp. dot.xsession.

But there are other solutions:

One thing to consider is using a graphical login managager like 
{k,g,x}dm, in case you don't already do so.

{k,g}dm allow the user to chooser their session. Adding new sessions to 
the list is pretty straightforward - just take a look at gdm.conf resp. 
kdm.conf files and the respective documentation.

If xdm is used you could modify its Xsession file: remove the part where 
~/.xsession is started and simply have it launch kde.

Yet another way would be to simply replace twm with a symlink pointing 
at the startkde script.



Finally, I suggest you check out cfengine <www.cfengine.org> (also in 
the ports), which makes central administration of a network quite easy. 
Cfengine also has macros to easily modify every user's 
~/.{xsession,whatever} file.
Additionally, you might want to consider using CVS to keep track of your 
configuration files (or/and the configuration files of cfengine).

HTH,
- Martin