desktops in action room

Shannon · **Posted:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:48 pm

The desktops of the action room computers are a mess. I've been working on cleaning them up, deleting files that aren't needed, putting them in folders, etc. Please - if you're downloading or saving files to these computers put it in a folder with your name, the working group's name, etc. Otherwise, it may disappear.

chombee · **Joined:** Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:01 pm **Posts:** 1325

Oy. I guess we should come round one day and do that rsync thing we've been talking about.

chombee · **Joined:** Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:01 pm **Posts:** 1325

I think we are using the computers wrong. Thing is, Ubuntu is designed to be a mulit-user system in which each user has an account and logs into that account when they use the computer. You're not meant to have everyone using one login like we do. Ubuntu thinks that all of us are one person and behaves accordingly. We're working against the design of the system, which creates all kinds of problems, like the desktop being full of everyone's files, stuff getting lost. Ubuntu sensibly remembers your print preferences (A3, A4 etc.) which makes perfect sense if you're just one person, but the way we use it the next person comes along and presses Print and surprise someone's set it to A3 again.

We really need to setup accounts for each user, and have the same accounts shared across all four machines.

We could still have a passwordless guest account, and that could be reset to a pristine state on each login like with the computer in the red room.

Shannon · **Posted:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:21 pm

How much space would each user have? James mentioned finding file sharing programs on one of the machines - how would we stop that with multiple users? Can you just block them completely?

chombee · **Joined:** Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:01 pm **Posts:** 1325

If we want to stop people from installing programs we can just take away the necessary permissions.

As for user quotas, depends on the size of the hard drives and the number of users, I think they might be 80GB drives. I would go for no enforced quotas, but then if one user fills up the whole disc it would fuck everyone up, someone would have to login as an admin and delete some of that user's files.

James · **Posted:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:09 pm

I would go for no user quotas, There might be a situation where someone needs to store lots of stuff, like video editing. I once worked for a company which had limited email server space, and they sent round a regular reminder listing how much space everyone used next to their names. Sounds like a plan to me - if someone really needs the space they can explain but someone who is taking the piss will be embarrassed and have their stuff deleted.

User account sharing should be easy to set up with NIS. I did this 8 years ago, so there may be a more modern solution by now. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpNISHowTo makes it sound easy, although note the security concerns.

We geeks need to meet and argue about how to share HD space, I guess?

chombee · **Joined:** Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:01 pm **Posts:** 1325

Yeah we should get together. I spent all weekend sorting out the music and jukebox, so am not keen to take the lead on this one, but I'll come along

Gandhi · **Posted:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:50 pm

what about asking people to start an account with some of the online storage places? Humyo give you 25 gb for free, not sure you can save video files on their though.

Shannon · **Posted:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:25 pm

It's a good idea G, but it's hard to get people to actually do it! (Myself included.)

milk · **Posted:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:27 pm

a good idea, although the transfer time for both up and down would make this prohibitive for large file sizes such as those you get with video. i'd recommend, along with instigating proper user accounts in some way, is that people buy their own usb drives, the prices of which have plummeted over the last few years/months. i got a 4Gb drive for £20 at xmas, now 8Gb now costs £15 and 16Gb, £35/40

Gandhi · **Posted:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:31 pm

I agree with the both of you, it is slow and I signed up but hardly ever use it!

You should buy some usb sticks to sell.

Martin · **Joined:** Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:35 pm **Posts:** 1078

People with an interest in this - let's discuss it at the AFWG meeting Thursday.

James · **Posted:** Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:44 am

From the green angle, I'm unwilling to just start recommending USB sticks. Its completely inefficient and a bit of a waste.

Plus WGs need to share docs ..... and although you can encrypt USB sticks most people won't and then we end up losing important docs.

I'm sorry I can't make the meeting thu but do want to be involved.

chombee · **Joined:** Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:01 pm **Posts:** 1325

I don't really think we need usb sticks or offsite storage, we can put our hard drives to use.

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