howto boot with a single gui app as the desktop ?

[David Timms]

Tim wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-11-04 at 12:27 +1100, David Timms wrote:
>> I would like to configure an fc6 system so that it:
>> - logs on without user interaction
> "timed login" was the term used on older versions, perhaps it's still
> applicable.
OK, thanks Tim, I found that:
# system|administration|login screen {gdmsetup}|
# users|add {user-to-login}|add|apply
# security|enable automatic login=tick|user={user-to-login}
# restart os.
This works OK to get the desktop logged in straight away, after a
reboot. If I ctrl-alt-backspace or logout from this desktop, I need to
manually login at the greeter login.

The second option on the security tab is autologin after a number of
seconds. While you can set the timeout to 1 second, gdmgreeter will
actually use 5 seconds (I guess to ensure that you can log in as someone
else if you need to}.
This timeout option works to automatically relogin after a logout.

>> - runs only one application {vnc viewer - which asks for the name of a 
>> machine to connect to}
> "sessions" options allowed you to configure what is automatically
> started up.
OK, found that: system|preferences|more preferences|sessions
# startup programs|add|vncviewer|close
This starts the vnc viewer automatically after a logout or restart and
it sits waiting for the vnc server to connect to. Editing the properties
also allows to pass parameters to vncviewer like the servername:
- vncviewer -passwd=/home/{user-name}/.vnc/passwd -fullscreen hostname:1

Combined with the first part, any time the machine gets to the login 
prompt it is automatically logged in and the vnc viewer is run full 
screen, connecting to the required vncserver.

>> - if the viewer is exited, then vnc viewer should restart, waiting for a 
>> machine to connect to.
>> - has a way to exit the viewer.
> The above two seem mutually exclusive.  I imagine some sort of process
> watchdog could check for a terminated VNC process and restart it.
> Though you'd have to be careful of looping around restarting a crashed
> process with faults.
I found the user can make two mistakes:
- tells the remote vnc desktop to logout - leaving the vnc-session 
alive, but showing only a back ground image. From my tests, this 
requires a vncserver -kill :1 and vncserver :1 to allow it to work 
again. {and a local machine logoff (ctrl-alt-backspace) to allow 
autologin/sessions startup to reconnect to the vncserver}
- if the user activates the vnc viewer popup {F8}, Exit viewer can be 
selected. This disconnects the viewer session. A {ctrl-alt-backspace} 
gets the user connected to the vnc server again.

In |sessions|current sessions| there is an option to set a program style 
as restart. This didn't seem to work for vncviewer.

>> Any pointers to information in this area would be very welcome ;)
> "kiosk mode"
Aha; some useful results now I know what this is called:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Kiosk-HOWTO.html
http://www.neveprise.net/main.do?id=howto-misc-firefox-kiosk

Surprisingly: to get the above setup working, fc6/gnome has all the 
options within the gui. "No text config files were harmed in the making 
of this configuration" :-)

Thanks also to Craig {didn't try since I don't have kde installed, and 
my previous attempt at using expect was hugely unsuccessful} and Chris 
{ltsp packages} for their suggestions.

David Timms.