Setting up for my mother and her grand children

[Guest]

I am trying to setup a new box for my mother and her grand children. The box was previously a windows 9x box but it is constantly having issues. I think the grand children and my brothers are installing a bunch of spyware and it is causing major issues. When my mom isn't happy I am not happy, you get the idea.

Now, I will give some requirements, I will try to avoid giving solutions. I am a software engineer and I hate when I get a requirements document that is more like an solution document.

Generally the computer isn't used for much more than web browsing and/or Quicken. My nieces/nephews use the computer for various multimedia uses and general web browsing. So like youtube, facebook and some music. My mother is another story, she is barely qualified to use the system. I told her to go to facebook and she didn't know what I meant

I am less interested in getting the nieces/nephews more comfortable, they will either adapt or stop using the computer(they are the cause of all my problems after all...). My mother on the other hand is the problem. Since she seems oblivious to the internet I think linux is the right way to go, she will never be beyond her web browsing(limited) and accounting, easy on linux.

So I decided to install Kubuntu. What I would like is a Guest account along with an account for my Mom, Dad, brother and myself. I would like the system to auto-boot and auto-login to the guest account and allow a user-switch. So basically I would like for the guest account session to load when no user session is active.

So if the system boots, it logs onto the guest session, if guest logs off it will reload the guest session. If a user switches, then logs off or times out it will load the guest session. I don't care if the guest session retains any info, it would be a bonus if it does but it is not required.

Now for what I have tried. I setup a guest account that required no password and would auto login. This works great if I login to a second account and logoff before the guest account locks. At this point it asks for a password, which I would not like to require.

I would be ok with having the quest account requiring a password but if possible.

Any ideas/critiscisms are appreciated.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Setting up for my mother and her grand children

There's a difference between auto logging in without a password and actually having no password.

In the latter case, a request for a password should be answered with the "Enter" key.

In your case you should be able to accomplish this in System Settings> Login Screen> Convenience.

You would tick Enable Auto Login, select guest, do not tick Lock Session, Preselect User is also Specified guest, tick Enable password less Logins, tick guest.

Here's a screen shot:

If this doesn't do what you want let me know. You could also tick Automatically login in again after X server crash while you're here...

[Guest]

Re: Setting up for my mother and her grand children

I actually have it setup like that already and it works great some of the time.

If I switch users from the guest session, then I logout of that new session, the guest session is locked and requires a password. The wierd thing is the background at that point changes to a snapshot of what it looks like when you change modes in X, with rows of distorted lines. If I move the mouse though I get the unlock dialog and if I sign in it goes to the guest session correctly.

This also occurs when I have multiple non-guest sessions, it seems to try to go to the previous session, instead I would like it to go to the guest session or if I can't do that go to the kdm login screen. Sorta like the behavior of Windows XP, where if you logoff, it takes you to the switch user screen.

If I want my mom to adopt this I will need it to work similar to her existing box.