Gnome is a problem for OEMs

[Scott J. Henson]

Daniel Carrera wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've spent all afternoon trying to figure out how I, as an OEM, can
> configure Gnome before giving it to a user. I just want to change some
> icons on the panel and maybe a menu entry.
>
Yes, I do believe that this is possible.  The first thing youll need to
look at is the oem mode for the installer.  I assume that youve already
seen this and are possibly even using it.  But just in case...[1].

As for Gnome itself.  I know other people have suggested Sabayon and I
agree its more for sysadmins.  Your plight is a bit different and as a
result is going to require a little bit of work.  I do believe what you
want is in /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/(I'm on a dapper system). 
Unfortunately I don't really know of a good way to edit this other than
configure a desktop and steal gconf snippets(in ~/.gconf/) from it that
do what you want.  Its will probably take a little bit of trial and
error, but I think thats where you want to go.  As for how to get that
installed on the system after you use the oem installer.  That could
maybe be accomplished with a live cd and a simple script?  Or if you
feel like mucking with the installer you should look for
base-config/late-command in a preseed file.  I would say a script that
wgets a tarball and untars it into temp and then copies it into
/target/etc/gconf/ would work. 

I know this isn't a definite answer to your problem, but I think it will
point you in the right direction.  If you have any more questions, go
ahead and reply with them and Ill try to answer them. 

[1]http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2005/10/11/ubuntu-oem-mode/


-- 
Scott Henson
LCSEE Systems Staff
WVU MAE Undergraduate
Ubuntu User