Help me do good things!!

[Cokeskoal]

Hi,
I am refurbishing old donated computers to donate to charitable organizations and have been installing Vector light and customizing it to look a certain way that people will feel comfortable with. I want to then create a live cd iso from this installation so I can speed up installation. I need to get a lot done asap. I love the combination of Sawfish / fbpanel / conky and nitrogen to set the background. It looks great and is really fast but I cannot figure out the autostart procedure. I created a script to run everything and it works when I execute it after login but I can't get that to run at startup.

 !/bin/sh
fbpanel &
 nitrogen --restore 
 conky &


Please help me get this under way.
Thanks

[M0E-lnx]

I've never used sawfish myself, but I found some (rare I might ask) explanation of how its init can be tricked into starting apps.
Looks like you need to create a script yourself.

You should be doing this in a terminal for ease of explanation.

Code:

nano /usr/bin/startsawfish

$HOME/.sawfish/autostart
exec sawfish

Save the file and set it executable with this command.

Code:

chmod 0755 /usr/bin/startsawfish

You also need to create the autostart script itself (for your user (non-privileged) account)

Open a new terminal (or drop your root privileges) and edit your autostart script

Code:

nano ~/.sawfish/autostart

lxpanel &
idesk &
nitrogen --restore
xbindkeys &

You may add or remove the apps you want to start there.
Again, save the file and set it executable

Code:

chmod 0755 ~/.sawfish/autostart

FWIW, I found this on the www.  The site is in spanish though http://manualinux.heliohost.org/sawfish.html

Now, you should start your wm with

Code:

/usr/bin/startsawfish

and it should work.  If you use a login manager, you session must call this executable to start it.  If you do not, calling it from your .xinitrc should suffice.

[overthere]

Hi Cokeskoal

I can not help with saw fish but am curious about the posted idea.
Although your enthusiasm for a custom vector using sawfish would be personally very entertaining, it is not really the best choice for any charitable organization. or is it?

I have a custom vll using fluxbox and love it. I have also attempted to give it away free but with very little interest, regardless how cool and easy it is to use.

If one were to create an easily installable cd of it and installed it to several various different used computers and gave them to a charity to sell for funds or to use as storage and document creation in an office, each unit would respond differently to later trouble shooting and the only source of assistance would be YOU, due to the level of customization.

Using a vll install cd and allowing the buyer to add what they like from the repository and use the icons for help already included will be difficult enough for the buyer or a user in an office, should YOU not be available to service all the units.

I like the idea of linux recycling old computers but the people who buy them are usually you or me and I want to customize it to my liking. although buying it with linux means it is known to work to that extent with linux at least. I would like to see more usable computers available but locally few charities offer them at all, as they are being sent to recycle due to purchase tax and are not really being recycled to the extent possible.

So I guess I am asking who is the target and how will you service them all. do you volenteer for a non profit and desire to trial run the idea? just curious as I have had similar thoughts of saving perfectly good computers from  the landfill.

Edit: Do you have a screen shot of the desktop..would like to see it

[overthere]

Sorry if that was inappropriate, I am not trolling am I?, was just curious about the process.

[Cokeskoal]

Thank you both for your responses - I will try the scripts tomorrow but I think overthere may be right. I was thinking about support the other day. I became enamored with how fast the combination of sawfish and fbpanel were. Realistically there is nothing there that is much different than what I can do with xfce. This is the desktop (the wallpaper is temporary until I finish logo and wall paper).



My target is not for charities to sell the machines. I am in touch with some volunteer "no-kill" animal shelters that run with no real funding and would benefit from the equipment and free software. I also am looking into shelters for battered women or homeless people where they had to leave any possessions behind. Through my work I also have contact with some welfare to work programs where having access to internet and email will assist recipients in job hunting. Lastly I will connect with religious groups that can get them to families that truly need them. I don't want to get into judging who really needs them and who is just trying to get something for nothing. For these end users I could pretty much just distribute an OS with a web browser and word processor - although that also can be done online now. I have requested donations of computers and parts through craigslist and freecycle.org and the response is very positive if not a little overwhelming. I purchased a domain for www.recyclincomps.com and will get to the website asap. There I hope to link to other like minded sites such as www.ifixit.com. If you have not seen it yet watch their video http://youtu.be/dMwLUnd_ydI. OK - enough on my soapbox lol.

[overthere]

Thanks for the pic, nice work, love the conky. appears these are donations with no strings attached and as such with no support and the OS could be changed to what ever the user chooses once they receive the donation but it comes as a usable device. You have a lot of work ahead and I wish you good luck. will go have a look at the links. Thanks for indulging me.
Cheers

[Lyn]

Having worked in a charity that recycled computers amongst other things I have to say I am impressed.  Keeping Linux on the machines is another thing, I suspect most of the people who got a linux computer probably got it wiped and had a pirated copy of windows put on after. 

Although I no longer work for the charity I am thinking of (on a small scale) working with my local freecycle group - asking for donations of computers and monitors etc and then installing vector on them and donating them to people in need (with a request that they keep vector on it for six months)....

[overthere]

One of the issues with linux on donated computers is not that the user would not like linux but that the support is not there when attempting to establish an internet connection. Some may prefer a hack of windows just to get service from the isp. many isp will not support linux, perhaps due to the variety of available distros , thus the connection from the wall is the users problem. many recipients regardless of the OS may have little computer experience, so setting up the connection could be problematic. if the system is not well set up or has a failing card even though it tested well, it will create additional struggle for the receipient. I still feel that support is the greater concern. however something is better than nothing and good hardware and detection of it would reduce the issues to basic connection skills, which without a connection to get help could be made available as a help file. placed on the desktop it would be a welcome site for someone eager to get connected. Just a thought.

[MarkGrieveson]

First, congratulations on taking this initiative.  I think that's great.  The screenshot looks excellent.

Years ago I set up an old computer with Debian in a shelter for people to use.  I used Gnome, but designed it to look like Windows (one bottom panel with a Start button).  It seemed to work well, and people did use it, but various concerns did come up.  Some people would complain of not being able to run various freeware games on it (IE, from Yahoo).  One user would spend the day creating hundreds of desktop icons (aka shortcuts), but I solved this by locking the desktop via permissions.  Also, I worried whenever people would use OpenOffice.org to create and send out resumes to apply for jobs, feeling that the formatting may not be preserved (I generally will export to pdf before emailing such things, but most users don't think to do this.)  

[hata_ph]

Confirm the autostart trick work

BTW, I have packaged sawfish-1.9.1 with an autostart script...try it once it hit the testing repo

[Cokeskoal]

I agree that the support issue is the problem with those keeping linux on. I have been experimenting with my wife and brother to see if they had any issues using it and it has gone well. My brother was shocked how fast his laptop seemed after I replaced the hard drive and installed vector - faster than when he got it the first time. Fortunately he was able follow my brief explanation on connecting to wifi but not all the incarnations are so easy to get working. As much as I love vector I was toying with using something like Slax or Ubuntu because they set up so easily. I actually ended up putting Ubuntu on my work computer because I could not connect to the network there hard as I tried. I am hoping that I will be able to at least do the initial setup when they are put in place but it is unlikely with families. If people wipe it and put windows on so be it - at least it meets the initial goals of giving them a working computer and keeping it out of land fills. They are going to be sorry with the performance however.

[overthere]

Sorry if I sounded negative, was posting in a general sense. Vector is fast and fun and I had zero issues connecting to the wireless network.It has been a while since I was building and donating and a lot has changed. Hope hata-ph's package works well for you and will look forward to seeing your page. Best of luck
cheers

[Cokeskoal]

OK - the scripts work when I startsawfish from terminal but I have no idea how to call that from GDM and it isn't working from .xinitrc (that is just me I'm sure - my brain is fried.) Seems like everyone on the net isstruggling with the autostart problems.
Thanks again

[hata_ph]

OK - the scripts work when I startsawfish from terminal but I have no idea how to call that from GDM and it isn't working from .xinitrc (that is just me I'm sure - my brain is fried.) Seems like everyone on the net isstruggling with the autostart problems.
Thanks again

modify your /usr/share/xsessions/sawfish.desktop, change Exec=sawfish to Exec=/path/startsawfish...

or you can install sawfish-1.9.1 that i make for VL 7.0...

[Cokeskoal]

Thank you - that did the trick. Thanks to everyone for your input - I'll let you know how things go.