Setting up a non standard environment

[Matthew Milliss]

Thanks for the quick reply Klaus. I'm currently using the %post section 
to install various applications and config settings, but my problem here 
is that I don't know which files to edit to make the changes to the 
gnome panel/launchers. I'm currently performing this step manually on 
every install. I guess this is more a question for gnome rather than the 
kickstart list.

Cheers
Matt

Klaus Steden wrote:
>
> Hi Matt,
>
> If I understand you correctly, what you would have to do would be to 
> edit the various desktop (i.e. GNOME or KDE) setup and control 
> scripts. There are a couple of possible approaches to this problem, 
> but the details will vary, so I won’t attempt to explain those since I 
> don’t know your environment. Regardless of the details, though, you 
> can simply add this to the ‘%post’ section of your Kickstart file. 
> This part gets executed immediately after all software installs have 
> been completed, and the system is otherwise ready to go. You could try 
> one or all of the following, depending on what works best for you:
>
>    1. Include diff’s or script instructions in %post to make the edits
>       needed to the files you want to change.
>    2. Write pre-baked versions of the file(s) you want tweaked and
>       store them on a local server, to be fetched via ‘wget’ or
>       similar during %post and saved to the appropriate locations on
>       the newly-installed OS.
>    3. Use a tool like ‘cfengine’ or ‘puppet’ to apply a more
>       systematic strategy to this kind of change management
>
>
> I’ve applied all three strategies in various ways over the years, and 
> they all have their respective merits and flaws. #3 is particularly 
> useful if you want to easily handle ongoing change management tasks on 
> a regular basis, in addition to pre-configuring new systems.
>
> As far as the changes necessary to add launchers and change file 
> browser behaviour, I wouldn’t be able to explain it quickly over 
> email, and the details will vary depending on the desktop system 
> (GNOME vs. KDE vs. vanilla X11) you’re using, so you’d have to consult 
> the respective documentation. Regardless, if you can make these 
> changes on a running system using a simple text editor and a command 
> line, you can easily apply the same process in the %post section of a 
> Kickstart configuration file.
>
> hth,
> Klaus
>
> On 5/21/08 3:51 PM, "Matt Milliss" <matt_milliss at yahoo.com>did etch on 
> stone tablets:
>
>     I'm using a kickstart script to install fedora 8 with gnome on all
>     desktops in my organisation. There are 2 things I would like to
>     automatically setup but don't quite know how. We have many
>     applications and I would like to add launchers to the top panel
>     for these applications, at the moment I do this manually but would
>     like to find out if there is a way to have this happen
>     automatically, possibly using skel or something similar. I'd also
>     like to change the default behaviour of the file browser
>     (nautilus?) without having to manually perform the steps for every
>     install. Is there a way that this can be done? Any help would be
>     greatly appreciated as it would save me lots of time.
>
>     Cheers
>     Matt
>
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