Fool-proofing dsl

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Fool-proofing dsl
started by: KeatonTech

Posted by KeatonTech on April 20 2007,02:54

Ok, so I have an old Toshiba Portege 3020ct laptop running DSL that i'm giving to my tech-illiterate mom. I have dsl up and running just fine (I use linux a lot, i'm not really a noob), but there's a few things that I just can't figure out how to do.

1. I basically just want the machine to be firefox, I don't even need fluxbox. In the xinitrc file I took out the fluxbox stuff and replaced it with 'firefox -height 800 -width 600 www.gmail.com'. That is all well and good except for one problem, there are about 50 lines at the bottom of the screen that still show the dotted pattern that you see when dsl starts up. I tried changing the height to 850 and that didn't work. Pressing F11 helps, but that makes all of the buttons smaller and harder to click.

2. This was formerly my backup laptop, but now I got another old DSL laptop. The problem is that it has my username and password. Is there a way to change the root username and password without losing all of my settings? I do not currently have access to a pendrive to re-install DSL (long story short, i'm supposedly on vacation).

3. Without fluxbox, i need an easy way to shut the computer off. I tried the acpid mydsl extension, but that didn't seem to do anything. I'm using DSL 3.2 so there's no apt-get, and synaptic isn't working. I do have ACPI on (or forced rather) so that's not the problem. There aren't any errors, it just doesn't do anything.

Other than that DSL seems to be a great linux distro for this kinda thing because of it's customizability and ability to run almost anywhere. I actually went crazy and bough 5 toshiba portege 3010ct laptops on eBay to put DSL on and give to people (keeping one for myself of course) and i'm loving it!

Posted by andrewb on April 20 2007,03:30

The command should read:

firefox -geometry 800x600 www.gmail.com

EDIT:
hmmm............. firefox doesn't seem to want to obey the geometry switch. Dillo works OK.

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on April 20 2007,04:07

1. there's a couple topics on DSL "browser kiosks"
2. Change the 'root' username? Do you mean you just want a different name, but still with root privileges? It's probably easier to create another then copy the settings over.
3. apt-get -> dsl-dpkg extension. Synaptic requires it.
Power button maybe (hold down)?

Posted by u2musicmike on April 20 2007,14:06

To power down would Ctrl-Alt-Bksp take you out so you could type

Quote

Shutdown -h now

Posted by curaga on April 20 2007,16:48

Give it a background color to replace that dotted pattern with "xsetroot -solid skyblue" before starting firefox....

About user stuff, change your pass, in case it will get stolen or something, but make it autologin as a non-privileged user so no login is needed (su in .xinitrc maybe, and changing getty to bash in initrc)..

For shutting down, could you make a button for that? In lua, or in FF, or maybe a key combination?
Or use the twm window manager (not sure if that's included in DSL, if not then evilwm) and make a menu with only shutdown command..

Posted by KeatonTech on April 20 2007,20:45

Thanks for the prompt replies, I think that answers all of my questions.

Posted by KeatonTech on April 20 2007,22:25

Well, that would've worked, except that I deleted too much of the .xinitrc script, which has caused some serious problems. After some worrysome struggles I managed to get dillo working, but no matter what I do firefox won't work and dillo ... umm ... let's just say it really doesn't work for me. Is there a way to fix firefox or am i somehow gonna have to find a replacement .xinitrc script?

Posted by KeatonTech on April 20 2007,23:21

Ok, lemme rephrase. Where on the web can I find the default .xinitrc script so I can fix what i've done?

Posted by lucky13 on April 20 2007,23:52

Just get it off the live cd.

Posted by KeatonTech on April 20 2007,23:53

I'm on vacation (supposedly), I don't have access to a pendrive or a floppy frive

Posted by lucky13 on April 21 2007,00:08

Here's the original from 2.1b. I don't know if any of the lua scripts called in it were changed when Robert upgraded everything to murgalua:

Code Sample

# put X windows programs that you want started here.
# Be sure to add at the end of each command the &

KEYTABLE="$(getknoppixparam.lua KEYTABLE)"
DESKTOP="$(getoption.lua $HOME/.desktop wm)"
ICONS="$(getoption.lua $HOME/.desktop icons)"

# For German Keyboards
if [ $KEYTABLE == "de" ]; then
xmodmap -e "clear Mod4" -e "add Mod5 = Mode_switch" &
fi

#if egrep -qv noicons /proc/cmdline 2>/dev/null; then
if [ "$ICONS" == 1 ]; then
for x in `ls -1 .xtdesktop/*.hide 2>/dev/null`; do rm -f ${x%.*}; done
iconsnap.lua &>/dev/null &
xtdesk &>/dev/null &
fi
# dillo /usr/share/doc/dsl/getting_started.html &>/dev/null &
torsmo 2>/dev/null &
case $DESKTOP in
fluxbox )
fluxter &>/dev/null &
docked.lua &
swallow.sh docked &
exec fluxbox 2>/dev/null
;;
jwm )
./.background
sleep 2
exec jwm 2>/dev/null
;;
* )
exec fluxbox 2>/dev/null
;;
esac

Posted by KeatonTech on April 21 2007,01:36

thanks lucky13

Posted by KeatonTech on April 21 2007,03:25

Ok, so that disaster was averted and I now have it boot up to a nice, full screen, opera browser (I somehow broke firefox, I actually like opera a lot). I still have a few issues though. I do want the computer to auto logon but i'm a little confused how to so that (I'm not THAT good with linux). I also cannot seem to get acpid to even install, the myDSL extension doesn't seem to do anything and I can't get to it through any other means. Other than that I think my moms gonna love this machine.

Posted by curaga on April 21 2007,09:21

Init starts services with /etc/initrc. There are lines for every runlevel, either like "c1:2345:getty 9600" or "c1:2345:bash -login". If it's getty, change that getty part to just bash (or ash), or remove that -login option if it's bash already. That way login is not even started, it logs automagically as root.

Then in the start of .xinitrc use su to change into another user, like "su - myuser"

Posted by KeatonTech on April 21 2007,14:59

Well, I don't seem to have /etc/initrc, i have /etc/init (Not human readable) and inittab (doesn't have anything like 'c1:2345:getty', It's got some other stuff with getty but I changed that and it wouldn't boot up.)

Posted by curaga on April 22 2007,10:06

Sorry. It was inittab. Post your current inittab here?

Posted by andrewb on April 22 2007,23:45

all the default files such as .xinitrc are in /etc/skel