[K12OSN] gcompris, childsplay, tuxtype in windows

[Matt Oquist]

I've recently been told that folks are having trouble running
gcompris, childsplay, and tuxtype on thin clients because the
default fullscreen modes don't always work, and editing the menus
system-wide is proving to be a burden.

Here are a couple of ways to address this problem:
1. (for Gnome, not sure about KDE but I expect it's similar if not
   identical...?)
   Edit /usr/share/applications/<application-name>.desktop and change
   the "Exec" line to include the necessary argument.
   For example, edit fedora-childsplay.desktop to have the following
   line:
   Exec=childsplay --window
2. create an application wrapper script
   This isn't the preferred way to solve this problem, as it will at
   least break on upgrade, if not break the upgrade.
   This involves moving the actual application over and putting
   a same-name wrapper script in its place, so the menu option will
   execute the wrapper script, which will in turn execute the
   newly-renamed original application with the requisite argument:
   $ su - (or "sudo su -" for Ubuntu)
   $ cd /usr/bin/
   $ mv gcompris gcompris.original
   $ gedit gcompris

Make this new 'gcompris' file contain the following:

--------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/gcompris.original -window $*
--------------------------------------
   $ chmod 755 /usr/bin/gcompris

   The system menus are configured to execute /usr/bin/gcompris, which
   is now a wrapper script that executes "gcompris.original -window".

IIRC, gcompris needs "-window", but tuxtype and childsplay need
"--window". You can easily try this on the command line before you put
it in place, and of course you'll want to test it from the menu after
you put a solution in place.

--matt

--
Open Source Software Engineering Consultant
http://majen.net/