configuring unity launcher for 200+ users

[Colin Law]

On 2 June 2012 12:07, Matt Johnson <johnsonmlw at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 2 Jun 2012, at 08:26, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 1 June 2012 22:54, Ryan Gauger <rtgkid at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 06/01/2012 12:58 PM, Matt Johnson wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> We plan to upgrade from 10.04 to 12.04 in a 250 user UK Junior school. I'd
>>>> like to put some popular, often-used programs on the launcher, as well as
>>>> remove Ubuntu One, software centre, settings etc which won't be needed. In
>>>> fact, the latter is more a priority than the former as I don't want
>>>> irrelevant stuff cloggin up the launcher.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How might we achieve that? I can't find a relevant directory or file that
>>>> I could distribute across the users.
>>>>
>>>> Ta.
>>>> --
>>>> Matt
>>>>
>>>>
>>> You have the ability to do this - through the terminal. You can run "sudo
>>> apt-get remove package-name", where package-name is replaced with the name
>>> of the package you are wanting to uninstall. I highly warn you about
>>> removing System Settings. If it is not available, some parts of Unity may be
>>> broken. For Instance, you may receive an error message after right-clicking
>>> the desktop, and selecting "Change Desktop Background". Some other parts of
>>> Unity may also be broken if you choose to remove System Settings. If you
>>> mean you want to remove individual settings in System Settings, that is not
>>> possible, because each part of System Settings is built around each other.
>>
>>
>> I think we are mis-interpreting the question here.  As I read it he
>> wants to remove the apps from the /launcher/ and add some other apps
>> (also to the launcher), but he has 250 machines to do and doesn't want
>> to do it by hand to all the machines.
>>
>> Colin
>>
>> --
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>
> Much obliged for all answers. Ubuntu is great in schools. Our setup is very easy to maintain.
>
> Colin,
>
> Yes, thanks. That's pretty much what I need, though it's made easier as we use thin and fat clients by using ltsp. So, as you say, what I want to achieve is to roll out a unity launcher setup (with selected applications) to all 250 users (effectively on one machine). I imagine this might be achieved by setting up one template user and copying a directory or config file to all users as I do something similar with 10.04 desktop icons and other users settings currently.
>
> So... Where is the user config for the unity 2d launcher please? Or another approach.

I believe it is stored in gconf.  If I run gconf-editor and go to
desktop/unity-2d/launcher/favorites I see a list of all the .desktop
files in the launcher.  I suppose a script could be written to set
this up appropriately for all users.

Colin