I am searching for subtle ways to make my GNOME desktop annoying enough to use that my roommates will stop requesting to borrow use of my computer. The problem doesn't relate to kindergarden share-your-toys virtues, the problem is: I could get in serious trouble (a.k.a. deportation) if their usage strays outside of legal bounds. The “glitches” have to be subtle enough that it isn't obvious that I set the computer up to malfunction on purpose (lest I create a rift), but just annoying enough that it is a pain to use and they will go to find a computer lab with Windows PCs. ...meanwhile I have to be able to turn these devices off easily enough that I can use my own machine.

The best I have come up with so far is to run a script that randomly flips on number lock key (on this compact keyboard the 10-keys happen to overlap the I O P K L ; , . / keys). Any other ideas?

Hmm.. Perhaps a really resource intensive infinite loop, or a whack of memory hogging applications, running as root, when you aren't using the machine? Something to really bog the machine down?
Perhaps (maybe also) using 'cpufreq' tools to clock the processor down to the lowest possible setting?

How clever/intuitive/experienced with linux/computers are these people?

a script that drops the network connection at random intervals could come in handy.
shut down the connection for 2 minutes, bring it back online etc.

Of course, you could install windows. Nothing makes a computer more annoying to use.

How about some scripts to make loud annoying beeps and popups every five minutes or so? Here are some examples:

1. Annoying beep plus a big popup window claiming to be from "Norton Antivirus" with one button to find out more and/or pay/register/whatever, and another button to "continue what I was doing".

2. Annoying pop sound plus a popup saying that "Windows Updates" have loaded and it won't go away until you let it reboot the computer.

3. Annoying popup asking whether to search for/install "HP Updates" (for HP printer/scanner software).

Also, you could do crazy stuff with the media player, where instead of just playing a DVD in the same media player as the rest of your videos, it'll open up WINE and run "PowerDVD" instead.

Hey, this list is endless...

...But seriously, just tell them "no", when they want to use the computer. If you want, you can create a guest account with limited access.

just change the password and turn of auto login!

oherwise set to boot into runlevel 3 by default...
all you have to do is type startx but if they dont know that they will be stuck with a command line!
browsing quasi-legal stuff is hard to do with lynx anyway,

anyway, where are you that you have to be worried about usage and deportation?


mabie using tor for everything would help?

Hmmmm. Maybe he's a mexican hacker/spy, staying in America to make it look like the attacks came from within inside.
Gardener by day. Secret ninja assassin by night.
Only he has to stay with annoying americans for cover.
but he can do nothing to provoke them for he would draw attention to himself....

So hes using an anonymous, but public service for advice.. to look for an intermediate and peaceful solution.

Thats my theory.

I mean look, he must call himself General for a reason.

I think he works at Microsoft

Ahhh. He could be looking for weaknesses.

Whatever process you end up running, make sure it's got a really low nice value - that'll suck all the juice from your processor

How about learning to say "NO", instead?

>> " How to make Linux a nuisance to use?"

install gentoo or lfs i heard ... infact its quite enjoyable as a nuisance for us ... you know , the leisure masses and things like that ...


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Easy way - change your /etc/inittab file so that it boots to a command line. Then don't log in.

Yeah, and always use command line or framebuffer stuff. It's amazing how much you can do without X.

I recomend setting it to boot into CLI by default, and changing your password + remove auto-login.

Haha, I like the idea of General being a secret ninja assassin :P.

Oh, and GNOME is a nuisance to begin with ; ).

(Kidding obviously. I've always liked GNOME's HIG. I just wanted to post that before any KDE-fan does.)

switch the keyboard to dvorak, don't put the appropriate stickers over the keys and don't use a keymap switcher in the taskbar.

it works really well.