[RndTbl] Public access machine

Mike Pfaiffer high.res.mike at gmail.com
Mon Dec 7 12:46:51 CST 2009


Robert Keizer wrote:
> Mike Pfaiffer wrote:
>>     The CLL is setting up a public access machine in the next couple 
>> of weeks. It is installed with Mint 8 (a multimedia Ubuntu fork). I 
>> would like to set up a couple of init scripts. The first will delete 
>> the public account home directory and copy a "clean" version in its 
>> place each time the computer starts. The second will shut down the 
>> computer after half an hour of use.
>>
>>     I haven't touched on cron since university 20 years ago and I've 
>> never written an init script. Having written a few shell scripts I 
>> know the copy script should be very simple. I'm not sure how to set up 
>> the timer script or make them run on start up. Would anybody be able 
>> to fire off some quick directions?
>>
>>     This may be a "foot in the door" situation.
>>
>>                 Later
>>                 Mike
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>>   
> 
> 
> A simple addition to root's crontab should allow you to reboot the 
> machine every 30 minutes without any problem. You could also give the 
> user a warning message if you wanted to with notify-send .. see 
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tech-tip-get-notifications-your-scripts-notify-send 
> for reference.. or the september issue of LJ :)

	I'll check out the link this afternoon. I like the idea of 
notification. Particularly if it's done through a pop-up dialogue box.

	As to rebooting every 30 minutes, I was thinking about that earlier. I 
think it would be best to halt after 30 minutes of usage rather than 
every 30 minutes. Suppose someone starts up at say 1:29. They would only 
have one minute before shut down. If it was after 30 minutes of use they 
would have until 1:59.

> All the best,
> Robert Keizer

				Later
				Mike



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