Users and Fast User Switcher

Submitted by Alan Pope on Fri, 2007-09-28 11:58.

MoS2007

In this screencast we look at creating multiple user accounts with different access rights and use the new fast user switcher to switch between users.

Logging in
Setting a face (avatar/icon)
Removing and adding the fast user switcher applet
Creating and modifying users
Switching between users
Leaving messages for other users in their screensaver

NOTE: I used Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) for this screencast. Gutsy is currently not yet released so I would not recommend running it yet on production systems.

Stream (requires flash player)
Google Video
1280x720 Flash
968x544 Flash
640x360 Flash
(Video will play in a pop-up window)

Download
1280x720 Ogg/Vorbis/Theora
768x432 Ogg/Vorbis/Theora
512x288 Ogg/Vorbis/Theora

Download
1280x720 Flash Video
968x544 Flash Video
640x360 Flash Video

Subtitles - How to use these
English

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Modify other user accounts

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 2007-09-29 08:34.

Thanks for this very interesting screencast. I have one question though: you have set up an account with a limited number of privileges (for Sophie in the screencast), she can't install any software. What do you have to do to install a couple of additional programs that she can use?

Can you do that from your own account, of do you have to change her account temporarily to administrator, install the programs, and then set the account's privilileges back to as they were before?

Great question

Submitted by Alan Pope on Sat, 2007-09-29 09:51.

If you install applications using the standard methods of "Add/Remove...", "Synaptic" or "gdebi" then the applications will show up under her menu when she next logs in.

You can do that from your account, you don't need to change her account at all.

Thanks for the explanation

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2007-10-07 16:17.

Thanks for the explanation Alan. A second question that follows up on this: what to do when you install software for yourself that you don't want other users to use and see in their menu?

If you install a program

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2007-10-10 08:02.

If you install a program throw "Add/Remove Applications" or Synaptic, it will be executable for everybody and most of the time visible in the menu (if it's visible in the menu for the person who installed the software piece, it's visible for everyone).

If you want to hide the entry in the menu of someone, you can do this by login into the session in which you want to remove the entry, then go to the menu "System->Preferences->Main Menu" (or something like that: sorry I am at work on a Windows box). That's it for visibility in the menus.

In order to forbid other users to execute, even if I finds the program, it's a bit more complicated. You can do it quite fast with the Terminal (it's not so difficult really). Here is a way to do it graphically:
1 - First step: Go to the user session with "Administrator" rights (the one who installed the programm), find the name of the app and it's path. Often you will have to search in the /usr/bin/ folder (Search it, on go into it with the nautilus File Browser: you can launch nautilus with this command-line in a Terminal: gksudo nautilus). For instance, if you installed the game supertux, it will the executable will be under /usr/bin/supertux.
2 - Change the rights of the executable, by right-clicking it.

I'am sure there are more elegant ways to do that without a Terminal.

The other way could be to

Submitted by Alan Pope on Wed, 2007-10-10 08:11.

The other way could be to use "chroot" I guess?

Broken Screencast

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2007-09-30 11:58.

Hello Alan and thank you for your great series; I feel at long last as if I am beginning to understand Linux - Ubuntu anyway.

I was watching the Part One Installation cast last night and it seems to be 'broken', getting to about 22 minutes in and then returning to the start. I ran it twice, just to make certain, and it did exactly the same again.

I thought you ought to know so that you might be able to fix it.

By the way, I'm not having any success with downloading the videos; I get a page of what seems to be programming and it scares me!

Best regards, marxman.

Thanks for the comment. I

Submitted by Alan Pope on Sun, 2007-09-30 12:43.

Thanks for the comment. I just played the master copy of that screencast and it is 22 mins and 13 seconds long. I also played the google video version and the large flash version. They are all the "right" length.

Which one wasn't right?

If you want to download, try right clicking and choosing "Save As".

Re Broken Screencast

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2007-10-01 16:28.

Hello again Alan.

Today I managed to see the whole screencast; I was mistaken about the time - on Saturday it 'returned to start' just after the partitioning details were concluded, when viewed in Flash at 968*544.

I am still unable to download from any part of the pages, and am not offered an option of 'Save As'. I can only save a .png image of the 'front page'

I am using Firefox and I only have the following options, none of which seems to work at all.

Open Link in New Window
Open Link in New Tab

Bookmark This Link...
Save Link As...
Send Link...
Copy Link...

Properties

I hope this is of some use as I would really like to download the series and keep it as reference material.

marxman

You need to right click the

Submitted by Alan Pope on Mon, 2007-10-01 17:13.

You need to right click the links underneath where it says "Download" and then do "Save Link As..". So for example from the home page of the website click one of the screenshots to be taken to the page for that screencast, then right click one of the links under "Download".

Thanks - I am a pathetic and aged newbie!

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2007-10-01 18:16.

Thank you for the instructions - I wonder if I'm getting too old for this game - computers and all; I'm the wrong side of 60 and probably never will understand it, but thanks again anyway!

marxman.

Screencast Program

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2007-10-18 03:31.

What program was used to create this screencast, and how were you able to have it start before login?

I use a variety of tools.

Submitted by Alan Pope on Thu, 2007-10-18 06:37.

I use a variety of tools. I'm making a "how to screencast" screencast at the moment which will fully explain it.

dierct log in and os manage

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2007-11-07 15:42.

Thank you for this screencast alan.

but as a home user of gutsy, i would like to know if there is a way to utterly disable all this user interface security system in a way for me to skip the log on screen, the password requests and all things involved.

thanx, ido

me again

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2007-11-12 22:40.

how about answering...

User login

Users and Fast User Switcher