I'm a sysadmin at Kubuntu machine. I wanted to customize a given user, say 'boris', and then transfer all dot files from boris - to all other users (I want them all to have the same default parameters).

So my question is - which .kde files are user-specific and are not allowed to be transfered from one user to another (because it will break other user's account).

As a side effect question - I can find no better way to customize default settings in KDE.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. I've posted the question on askubuntu:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/109382/how-to-configure-kde-default-settings-for-a-new-user-of-a-group

Which applications does this concern?

If it concerns Plasma - you probably want to look into Plasma Scripting as a way to customise the default desktop layout. Please see KDE Techbase (http://techbase.kde.org) for more information there.

For other KDE applications, simply look for references which have hardcoded your username. In general, the only way to find out is to actually try it.

In terms of how to distribute it, you can do it through two ways:

1) Through /etc/skel - which will alter the defaults, but they will be changable afterward.
2) By using the KDE Kiosk infrastructure, and immutable key entries. These settings will not be overridable by the user.

More information on Kiosk can be found on KDE Techbase.

Great news!

If I do copy all dot files from user say boris, to user say kheyf, then do

Code: Select all

cd /home
chown +R kheyf kheyf

as root - all works fine.

Finally, I've created a dummy user, configured it, and wrote a script:

https://github.com/bk322/bk-goodies/blob/master/bk-sysadmins-kde.py

which gives it's settings to a given user(s). The trick - is to chown after one transfered the dot files from one user to another. I've tested it - it works fine.