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I have a high school lab running Ubuntu 18.04. How can I lock down the wallpaper and lock screen images so students can't change the image to something obnoxious ?

I was hoping it was a simple file change removing write permissions.

Thanks ~~

ether_joe
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1 Answers1

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Locking the wallpaper requires as per the GNOME Admin help guide

  • setting the wallpaper
  • making a locks directory under the keyfiles directory, then
  • defining what you want locked, and finally
  • updating with sudo dconf update
K7AAY
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    so there's not just a filename from which I can remove w permissions ? – ether_joe Sep 20 '19 at 21:57
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    You could remove execution permission from `/usr/bin/gsettings`. This effectively prevents the user from changing the background. However, it will prevent them from changing a whole lot of other session parameters as well. I can't assess whether that is still a workable option. – Jos Sep 20 '19 at 22:49
  • Not in GNOME, which is the Desktop Environment of Ubuntu. Kubuntu has KDE, Lubuntu has LXDE or LXQt (depending on version), Xubuntu has XFCE, Ubuntu Budgie has Budgie, Ubuntu MATE uses MATE: those are the official 'flavours' of Ubuntu distros. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFlavors and https://www.fossmint.com/which-ubuntu-flavor-should-you-choose/ – K7AAY Sep 20 '19 at 22:49
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    @Jos that may be the ticket. I'll give it a shot. – ether_joe Sep 21 '19 at 00:39
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    Unfortunately chmod -x /usr/bin/gsettings didn't work ... the desktop is still modifiable. I'll try the lockout option. – ether_joe Sep 23 '19 at 19:40
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    dconf adding a db and lock file also didn't work. There's got to be just a simple permissions change ! This is becoming way too difficult. – ether_joe Sep 23 '19 at 20:23
  • Take a look at https://askubuntu.com/questions/36276/how-to-restrict-users-on-changing-their-wallpapers – K7AAY Sep 23 '19 at 20:39
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    all right, I had a mistake in my /etc/dconf/profile/user file . Lock now working correctly. – ether_joe Sep 23 '19 at 23:04
  • @ether_joe Excellent! I predict this will become a very popular question! – K7AAY Sep 23 '19 at 23:28