Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

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Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

And delete my current account?

or is there a way to make Linux boot a priority user to the Desktop and leave a hidden Admin account?

My sister and hubby need to be introduced to the wonders of "Windows on Linux", e.g. Mint Cinnamon 18.3
Windows 10 has thoroughly trashed their enjoyment of using their PCs.

I now have a spare Dell laptop that I can loan them for a few weeks to get their feet wet w/o them going through the anguish of me messing with their current laptops.

My question pertains to keeping it as simple for them as possible, e.g., having it boot straight to the Desktop w/o having to enter a password, just like I do now with it.

They won't be doing anything except surfing the internet and doing emails and Facebook.
geeks they definitely are not.

I will place those 3 icons on the Desktop so it looks just like their old Windows machines, and show them the basics of the Menu structure, but leave all of the Linux geek talk completely out of the picture.

So, what should I do?

1) change ownership of the current user ( me ) ?

2) create a new user for them and somehow keep my Admin status hidden?


it goes w/o saying, that all of the /home/folders will be empty, for them to do with as they wish.

Timeshift will be on a schedule to a hidden /backup partition to keep things tidy.


And updates.... how can I set it to Auto-Update Levels 1 and 2 ?
or, for the brief minimal period they will be using it, I assume 2 or maybe 3 months, just forget about updates.
( I am inclined to just not have Updates get into the picture for their introductory period )

.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by gm10 »

Does it matter if you're wiping /home, anyway? Unless you give them the root password it hardly matters what user they're on, unless you set up some special permissions for your regular user that you don't want them to have.

Auto-login can be configured in the users & groups utility.

For auto-updates to only process certain levels you'll have to edit the cron-job. See mintupdate-tool --help for the options.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by Pierre »

so, I've done that, both ways:
- - Create New User - - elevate that account, to enable SU privileges.
- Create New User - - use existing account for SU password.
- - use existing account for the duration of the temporary loan.

in general - - I'd go with the 2nd option
:)
if they wish to continue with the Linux System, then goto the first option, rather than an outright re-installation.

it is possible to create a Guest Account, that has very limited system access, as an alternative.
& if you do visit your sister, somewhat regularly, then you could keep your account running as admin . .
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Please edit your original post title to include [SOLVED] - when your problem is solved!
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

Tnx Pierre,

that is sort of what I am leaning towards.

after posting this up, I got to thinking that I will create two users:

Greg
Josie

and use the same password for both, and they do that to everything they own.

that way, each can play with it, save what they want, and the other won't have unnecessary clutter.

Leave my account on it, in case something requires Admin work. Greg is a retired Electronics Specialist and willing to work by telephone. I think I will put TeamViewer on it so that he can log into my Admin account and then I can walk him thru things.

as for seeing her, we live about 1,600 miles apart, and just this year, started our first "annual reunion" with plans to keep them up until we can't travel any more.

I'm 75, she is 69 so life and fun are getting precious.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by lsemmens »

Just had a visit from my sister who was returning from the outback. They were up at Giles Corner (as far from civilisation as you can get) and my Brother-In-Law decides that that was a good place to have a T.I.A. He was flown to Broken Hill by the RFDS and my sister had to drive in by herself, Fortunately it was not bad and BIL is now on the mend, He's nearly 80 and sister isn't too far off it.
Enjoy what time you have with you family and friends.

Soory, BOT, I' just set up and account for them and let them play. It's not as though Linux can't handle a few hard knocks. It' ain't another OS that takes forever to load, and twice as long to update. :D
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

okay,

melded all of this together and the Dell laptop now has 3 accounts.

Mine, Greg, Josie.

when I did that, 'Guest' showed up, and would log in w/o a password.
That just can't be allowed, I need to stop that, I don't want Guest to be a login option period. It caused a huge problem with Teamviewer, preventing the account to be logged out and leave Teamviewer running.

I've been playing with the Dell most of the day, have my sister's favorite wallpaper up so it "feels like home" when the DE comes up. Minimum of Task Tray icons for her to pick from... I am debating to remove the Terminal icon because she won't know what to do with that anyway, nor will Greg.

Since I plan on using TeamViewer to manage it from home 1800 miles away, and Terminal is available in 2 other ways, that probably would be a good idea. The less Linux that is presented to them, the better.

Right now, when the DE shows up, there is no indication of what OS is under the hood.
Except for the panel icons.... of which they will need to learn....
  • log into the WiFi once they get it
    Logoff so the other one can play with it
updates, I have it set for "Keep Me Safe" so, levels 1 & 2 will be all that are presented.
In any event, I don't think that a month or two in between updates should be a problem....

Updates: if any one of the 3 of us runs Update Manager, should that not take care of the whole PC in as far as the OS is concerned?

I'm not concerned about a new app they try to install, I locked that out, has to have my password to do that.

Their personal data will be considered throw away probably as this is be a "new toy" for them to play with.

I gave Josie a Samsung Note 4 on Verizon's carrier setup minus the SIM card.... at our reunion last week.
Even so, she is having a hoot with that thing on WiFi.... She is in love with Facebook and Google and the Weather Channel.

her personal phone is an old Motorola Flip phone :lol: :lol:
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by gm10 »

Just disable or remove the guest account.

Make sure you set up their user permissions so they can create new wifi connections at all.

With normal user privileges they won't be able to install any system updates. But yes, once installed, they apply to every user.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

gm10 wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 3:28 am Just disable or remove the guest account.

Make sure you set up their user permissions so they can create new wifi connections at all.

With normal user privileges they won't be able to install any system updates. But yes, once installed, they apply to every user.

I don't see Guest as a User in Accounts:


Image


And, I apparently don't know which group to enable them to log into a New WiFi router...
when I tried just now to do that with Josie, it asked for John's password ( that's me )
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

Resolved the Permissions " I think "

following this page: https://askubuntu.com/questions/141553/ ... dard-users

and then setting up both josie and greg like this:


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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

Oops!

that caused a system lockup when I tried to log into 'josie'

it asked for System Permissions for 'john' relating to Network,
I entered my password and then got this screen, plus it won't go any further, and I can't log out of her account, or Switch Users......

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I have a doctor's appointment in 30 minutes, gotta run, back later this evening.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by gm10 »

AZgl1500 wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:03 amI don't see Guest as a User in Accounts:
Menu > Login Window > Users > Allow guest sessions
AZgl1500 wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:28 am I entered my password and then got this screen, plus it won't go any further, and I can't log out of her account, or Switch Users......
Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is the shortcut to kill a user session and get you back to the login screen instantly.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by JerryF »

AZgl1500 wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:17 am Resolved the Permissions " I think "

following this page: https://askubuntu.com/questions/141553/ ... dard-users

and then setting up both josie and greg like this:


Image
I don't think you'll need to give them VirtualBox privileges---will they be using VirtualBox?

+1 for TeamViewer. You can "be there" without being there.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

JerryF wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:51 am
AZgl1500 wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:17 am Resolved the Permissions " I think "

following this page: https://askubuntu.com/questions/141553/ ... dard-users

and then setting up both josie and greg like this:


Image
I don't think you'll need to give them VirtualBox privileges---will they be using VirtualBox?

+1 for TeamViewer. You can "be there" without being there.
Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is the shortcut to kill a user session and get you back to the login screen instantly.
1st thing I tried, ignored me. It sat for 5.5 hours until I got back home.

I will remove the VirtualBox privileges, clicked that out of habit "for myself"

Gained control with R E I S U O

i am now back on the Dell with my account.

So, why did "josie" lock up?"


Teamviewer looses control when a user logs out, then I am unable to get back into the PC again, until the DE is rebooted and all logins are fresh.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by gm10 »

Can't help you with teamviewer, never used it on Linux. My guess would be that it's incompatible with your display manager. Are you on lightdm yet?

And frankly I don't know why it locked up. Try without teamviewer running maybe.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by JerryF »

AZgl1500 wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 2:25 pm ...
Teamviewer looses control when a user logs out, then I am unable to get back into the PC again, until the DE is rebooted and all logins are fresh.
I have the same problem with Teamviewer for Linux. When Teamviewer for Windows is installed, the person only has to turn on the computer (not logged in) and I can connect. With Linux, no. I have to wait for the person to log in.

I have no solutions, sorry.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

not going to worry about it.

the 'josie login has not given any more trouble at all.
I removed VirtualBox from both 'greg' and 'josie' and then test both of them.
never did get that funky request to login with 'john' password again.

been messing with the Dell now in all 3 login states back and forth, Switch user, Logout, login to users.

nothing is going wrong at all with it. The SSD came in today, so need to open the Dell up and replace the broken display panel and drop in the new SSD, run a fresh install on that, and then let Aptik restore the DE to where it is now.

play with it a couple of days and post it off with FedEx.... I was in town this morning to see my ENT who vacuum at least two major oceans of fluid out of my ears, both left and right.... I can hear again, a real wonder and a blessing for my daughter. If my fingers got on the TV remove, the audio levels were blasting her out of the house..... now we can both enjoy TV together and I'm not asking for it to be made louder anymore.

Stopped off at Best Buy and bought a new LogicTech M510 wireless mouse. love those things, it is now dedicated to this Dell so that the touchpad and be left turned OFF.

Thanks to every one for helping me down this road the last couple days.

I just switched back over to 'josie and verified that she can login into a WiFi network, so it is nearly ready to box up and ship out.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

JerryF wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:29 pm
AZgl1500 wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 2:25 pm ...
Teamviewer looses control when a user logs out, then I am unable to get back into the PC again, until the DE is rebooted and all logins are fresh.
I have the same problem with Teamviewer for Linux. When Teamviewer for Windows is installed, the person only has to turn on the computer (not logged in) and I can connect. With Linux, no. I have to wait for the person to log in.

I have no solutions, sorry.
Teamviewer actually has a solution for this problem.
it is a crutch, but it will get us back into the picture after a logout of the remote user.

This MUST BE INSTALLED ON THE REMOTE user's laptop/PC.
I do NOT have it installed on my ASUS, yet I am able to regain control of Josie's laptop.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/427125/ ... re-it-does

I just installed the service they speak of, it is straight forward and not hard



All you need to do is make sure this script runs on startup. Making sure of this is relatively simple, just copy it to /etc/init.d like so:

Code: Select all

cd /opt/teamviewer/tv_bin/script
sudo cp teamviewerd.sysv /etc/init.d/
Don't forget to make the script non-writable to anyone but the owner!

Code: Select all

sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/teamviewerd.sysv
Then run

Code: Select all

sudo update-rc.d teamviewerd.sysv defaults
The service will now start automatically with each boot. If you don't feel like rebooting, you can start the service manually with:

Code: Select all

sudo service teamviewerd.sysv start

I took the "crashed Dell laptop" that I had remotely logged 'josie' out of her DE.
Bingo! bye bye Teamviewer control.

then I used Google to find the above solution, and applied that, then set the Dell aside,
and used my ASUS to log into it via Teamviewer.

logged into josie, then logged out, and poof!
lost control again................ but!!! the Teamviewer Service is still running in the OS,
all you need do is Connect back to the Dell again, and then do what needs to be done.

Each time you loose control, reactivate the CONNECT and you are back in again.

Hooray for Teamviewer to provide us with a solution to retaining Remote Control of a system we need to maintain.

I cannot begin to express how much "comfort" this gives me in sending off the Dell to my sister, and then like all things computer, something unforeseen WILL arise, and byte us in the pants.

Now, I can reconnect, gain control again, and do the Upgrades as needed.... even when she is asleep because she never turns her laptop off, just closes the screen.

Even in Windows, we do not have this kind of reliability in controlling the Remote System.

It is Klutzy, and you loose control a couple times during a switch over between users, but, you can regain control at the same point you lost it.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

Well,

it is not 100% perfect, I tried to do some changes in Josie's Screensaver via the remote connection, and even though the mouse cursor would move, nothing would close down, or log out.

Wish I had thought to try the R E I S U B remotely............
will that even get passed to the remote PC?

since I had the Dell on my desk, I took it over manually and issued Control-Alt-Backspace and it was ignored. i am finding that command is 99% useless, it almost never works for me.

however, R E I S U O/B seems to 99.99% of the time work like it should.

My lesson from this, is to avoid any serious PC management via remote control unless I am logged into my own account.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by JerryF »

Thanks for sharing that info about installing the service for Teamviewer! Will help a lot.

Sorry that you're having connection problems. When I use Teamviewer, I've never lost connection. :?:

You should be able to pass R E I S U B to the remote computer. You'll need to use the onscreen keyboard within Teamviewer to do that.
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Re: Change Ownership, or create new user for a Family Loaner

Post by AZgl1800 »

I didn't mean to infer that I lost the internet connection, just that Teamviewer lost control.

now at least, with the TV service running in the OS itself, we can regain control.

I will just have to make sure that I never try to do anything from their logins that will require a Root Password, seems that does not play well and things get hosed up.
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