Sorry, this question is a little off-topic for this list, but desperate
times call for desperate measures. 8^)
In a few days' time, a major partner of an NGO I work for is going to
come and visit. They've partnered on a project to create a film about
HIV and AIDS, and to accompany the DVD with a multi-media CD-ROM which
provides a really fantastic collection of supporting materials. This CD
is for use in schools and aimed at youth in general, and is being
distributed throughout the Pacific Islands region.
I've copied the material onto our local web server, in order that it can
be accessed by all the computers on the center. It's done in FrontPage
(feh), but at least all the links are relative, so that was a fairly
straightforward task.
The material is great, but unfortunately it's designed to run on Windows
XP with MS Office installed. Having dealt with OS-centric file format
problems for quite a while now, I'm familiar with how to install
appropriate codecs, libraries and applications to cope with other
people's short-sightedness. 8^)
I've worked out which applications will work best with the material on
this CD-ROM, and I've determined how to configure an individual
GNOME/Nautilus profile so that a user can click on any link and the
appropriate action happens (e.g. movie clips and wma files open in
mplayer). There's one issue that I still have to deal with. though:
We have a youth centre here with 6 Ubuntu Breezy computers providing
almost 400 users with individual accounts. The vast majority of these
young people are school leavers with low literacy levels. I need a way
to quickly and easily set the global defaults for all of these users in
order that any one of them can access the items on this website and have
it Just Work.
I'd like to be able to set system-wide defaults that override current
individual settings. Normally I'd just dig through the bits and pieces
of info scattered all over the 'Net until I have what I need, but
unfortunately the Internet service here consists of 14 computers all
sharing a single dial-up line(!), so that's not really an option given
the time constraints.
My request, then, is can folks offer some insight into the best way to
approach this problem, both in the generic and specific:
1) How do I set mplayer to be the system-wide default handler for .wma
and .wmv without walking through every single user account and changing
the settings?
2) This kind of thing is going to come up on a regular basis, so: Can
anyone suggest any useful tools and/or approaches to handling
configuration changes to hundreds of user accounts simultaneously?
'Write a script' is a perfectly acceptable answer, provided it comes
with some suggestions concerning which tools to use. 8^)
One note about local resources: We're a very small NGO providing
services to over 3000 local youths on a total annual budget of AUD
15,000. Our machines are typically donated, second-hand PCs about 5-8
years old.
I'll happily distill the responses, factor in my own experience and
return a little documentation to the community if people think this
would be useful.
Thanks in advance, and sorry for the slightly off-base question.
Unfortunately, I just don't have the time or resources right now to find
a more appropriate place.... 8^/
--
Dan McGarry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
IT Consultant
Community Communications Project
--
edubuntu-devel mailing list
edubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-devel
