On meddling with user configurations

[Martin Pitt]

Hi Henrik!

Henrik Nilsen Omma [2006-02-22 10:19 +0000]:
> So we have a general principle that we shouldn't meddle with user 
> configurations during updates and release upgrades, which on the whole 
> seems sensible. Is this policy written up in some detail somewhere?

As far as I can see, we mainly follow the Debian Policy by and large.
[1] is the only codification known to me, though.

[1] http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s-config-files

> Does the policy distinguish between new and existing user accounts? I 
> guess the general principle is that we can set new defaults for new 
> releases, but if the user has already changed the default settings then 
> we should not change them back.

I agree.

> My question is: to what extent does this policy restrict us from doing 
> cool things for new users? 

It generally doesn't. The DP suggests to aim for keeping the number of
files in /etc/skel as low as possible, though, since it is very hard
to revert the effect of changes in it.

> I'm coming at this from the example-content 
> perspective:
> 
> We are including some example sound files, OOo documents, etc. in 
> dapper, intended to help new users explore the features of the different 
> programs. IMO it would be helpful to have the sample music clip show up 
> in the Rhythmbox library of a new user account. New wallpapers should be 
> already added to the wallpaper selector and Office documents should be 
> added to a folder in the users home directory.

Won't that be mainly an issue of changing gconf defaults? gconf has a
different semantics of preserving user configuration and updating
changed defaults than /etc/skel, but it seems appropriate to me.

> None of this is useful for existing users though, so IMO we should just 
> skip these changes for existing accounts. If you already have your own 
> collection of files, wallpapers, bookmarks, etc, then you don't need 
> this example stuff. It is, however, very useful for people who are just 
> checking out Ubuntu, perhaps on a live CD. If they quickly discover some 
> cool stuff they can play with they might be won over.

Full ack.

> So, are we able to distinguish between these two situations and make
> these changes only for new users?

The only way I see would be to use /etc/skel for that. However, I
wouldn't like to pre-populate /etc/skel with gconf settings, since
that would make gconf think that the user manually modified all the
keys in there. I would prefer doing these changes as gconf schema
modifications, however, this would affect existing users who never
touched these particular settings as well.

OTOH, using /etc/skel for example documents is pretty fine, I think. I
would just suggest to not symlink/copy each and every single file into
it (since e-c will certainly change in the future), but to add a very
small number of generic symbolic links ('Example documents').

Thanks,

Martin
-- 
Martin Pitt              http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer   http://www.ubuntulinux.org
Debian Developer        http://www.debian.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/attachments/20060226/97694f53/attachment.pgp