On Mon, Dec 03, 2012 at 03:53:32PM +1100, James Cameron wrote: > For a truly shared computer, I suggest switching to a login screen > before Sugar, such as that provided by the default Fedora (before OLPC > OS removed it).
I tried this just now on an XO-4 with 13.1.0 build 15, and was able to switch to using a login screen: # yum install -y gdm # install the login screen # chkconfig olpc-dm off # turn off the automatic login by OLPC # chkconfig gdm on # turn on the login screen # passwd olpc # set the password on the default account # adduser fred # create a new account # passwd fred # set the password on the new account # reboot It worked reasonably well, and the login screen had a Sugar vs GNOME option, but there were a few irritating bugs that would need to be worked: - fonts used by Sugar are too small, (perhaps this is something done by olpc-dm when it should instead be done in a platform-specific session startup for Sugar), - there's no Logout option on Sugar, to take the system back to the login screen, - after Logout from GNOME, there is system startup text displayed for a short time before the login screen appears, - no Sugar Activities are present in the second account even if they are copied manually ... something that the Sugar developers could probably advise on. > For XO-1.5, a 4GB SD card per student might be another alternative; > when the card is inserted before power on, the laptop could be made to > behave with the identity of that student. This is costly, and risky, > but is available immediately with no unusual configuration. How is this done? Store a fresh operating system on the SD card using a spare laptop, then use the SD card on the student shared laptop: - unlock a spare laptop, - power off the spare laptop, - insert an SD card, - power on and get to the ok prompt, - type 'devalias fsdisk ext:' and press enter, this selects the external SD card socket for the next step, - type 'fs-update u:\21021o1.zd' to install the build, changing the file name as appropriate, - remove the card, - power off the student shared laptop, - insert the card, - power on the laptop. The fs-update step would need to be repeated for each SD card, unless a duplicator was available. If using a duplicator, the master SD card must be duplicated before it is used to boot a laptop. -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
