Hello,
I have a machine running Ubuntu 12.04/64bit.
I got a friend-son that uses it when he comes to my home, quite frequently. However I don't like him to clutter the pc with rubbish or play on my account.
So I created him an account. The problem is that he keeps downloading things, changing desktop, cluttering everything..so i have to step in from time to time and clearup..
Is there a way to create an user that will automatically reset to a predefined setup at each reboot? Example: reset to a desktop wallpaper I choose, with unity apps I choose and so on? and delete every change made by him when shut down?
Many thanks

That actually is pretty easy. Set up the account in the way you want it to be, then make a copy of the users home-directory. Now you can simply remove the user's /home directory and copy back the original one when rebooting or starting the system. Just put this into your rc.local:If you don't want to happen that at every boot just put those lines into a separate script that you can launch manually if needed.
Of course there are more sophisticated and elegant solutions (like mounting a unionfs to the user's home-directory), but I would think that this is the simples method.

1 members found this post helpful.

As above.

Might even look at using a kiosk or usb/cd/dvd type of boot or get real exotic with a iscsi booted system.

Might be able to use features of btrfs or zfs or some other snapshot of the time.

Tobi that's a fantastic idea..