Hello and KDE on LTSP

[Jonathan Carter]

Hi Andrew

Welcome to Edubuntu!

On Thu, 2006-07-06 at 22:21 +0100, Andrew Scott wrote:
> #1: Any idea how I can find / get hold of system logs for the client as it sets
> up? Debugging is a mite difficult without this ...

For debugging, I usually set up the root user in the thin client chroot:
$ sudo chroot /opt/ltsp/i386 passwd

You can then set a root password for the chroot environment. On the thin
client, you can then press ctrl+alt+F1 to get to a virtual terminal and
troubleshoot, alt+F7 will get you back to LDM.

> back up again, and lo and behold the client works perfectly again. So I'm
> hypothesising that LDM never dies, just fades away, and cannot be reincarnated.
> Thoughts?

This sounds strange, if you do find out what is causing it, please let
me know. Sounds like it might be a bug.

> #3: [As per the tag line] Logging in on LDM brings me in to Gnome desktop.
> Gnome is nice, but I want KDE. How can I get KDE? I tried chrooting to
> /opt/ltsp/i386 and 'apt-get install kubuntu-desktop' but of course just messed
> up my install and had to wipe and rebuild using ltsp_build_client. What am I
> missing?

You can use:
$ sudo chroot /opt/ltsp/i386 update-alternatives --config
x-session-manager
Then choose the option that says kde-session.

> #4: The LDM is very plain and is not intuitive for my family to use. I would
> like a faces theme, preferably human-list. How can I arrange for this to
> happen? Logging in to a client should present the same experience as logging
> into the main machine.

LDM has greatly improved in the last version, and more major
improvements are planned, although a faces list is highly unlikely for
the Edgy version. Perhaps after edgy this could happen, it's also
possible that GDM will allow ssh tunnelled logins in the future, which
means that you could use GDM with Ubuntu LTSP.

> #5: I would like sound on my clients. I've read all the Ubuntu LTSP docs, and a
> few more besides. Yes, I am running artsd, and no, I will not be changing my
> basic sound architecture after having got it all working on the main machine
> otherwise my death will be long slow and painful.

As you wish. :)

-Jonathan