PCLinuxOS Education Version

[jimwilk]

Last weekend, I burned a live CD of the Education version of PCLinuxOS and gave it to two of our grandchildren (ages 9 and 6)

Later that afternoon, I received an email from the 9 year old, thanking me for the CD. He thought it was "cool" and his sister "loves it"
Thank you Grandad

Jim

[melodie]

Hi Jimwilk,

Thank you very much for this testimonial. I am happy to know that this version pleases your grand-children !

I am a bit worried, because I thought I had good configs for the security of the datas in the hard drives, but it looks like something more or something else should be done. I explain : I have changed the defaut setup in the file /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf, for the 2 lines related to internal partitions that are not configured to be mounted at boot, ie : you have Windows, or your main PCLOS distro and don't want the kids to look into your directories from within the LiveCD, well not only they could not, but to be able to mount the root password was needed. It looks like in the Live actually, that works. After a few updates here, in the installed machine, it does not work anymore.

The files still can't be accessed from another user's account (user school can't access to Jimwilk's home directory), but the partitions can be mounted...

If you ever have the possibility to check this out, I would be interested to get some feedback. Otherwise I have also explained the tricks added for the sake of the hard drive datas here:

While waiting for PCLinuxOS Education... :-)

Regards,
Mélodie

[jimwilk]

Melodie
I just did a test with the Live CD that I had downloaded

When logged in as "school", I attempted to open some of the partitions. Each time it asked for the root password. If I used the school password it didn't allow me to view the partition. However, if I used the root password, I could view just that partition.

If I logged out to the login stage, then the root privilege was retained and I was able to view that partition. It placed a little school symbol in green next to the directory list under the file manager.

I then rebooted and tried the test again but this time, when I opened the file manager and attempted to open one of the other partitions, I only used the school password. The system didn't allow me to view the partition.

BTW I don't have windows on my machine at all - just PCLinuxOS 2011.06 KDE

I am not sure if my testing above helps with your research. I did hear this morning that the grandchildren spent all last Sunday on the Education package. By the time they had finished, they had accumulated so many penguins across the bottom of the screen that their father had to come and photograph the screen for them. (They were working just from the Live CD so not installed).

Kind regards,

Jim

[melodie]

BTW I don't have windows on my machine at all - just PCLinuxOS 2011.06 KDE

I am not sure if my testing above helps with your research. I did hear this morning that the grandchildren spent all last Sunday on the Education package. By the time they had finished, they had accumulated so many penguins across the bottom of the screen that their father had to come and photograph the screen for them. (They were working just from the Live CD so not installed).

Kind regards,

Jim

Jim, it does help me. At least reading you, I am now sure I didn't dream that it was well configured, once. I could even reinstall it somewhere, maybe in a vbox to have it at hand, and see how it evolves once updated short after install. Then I would just need to add a few vbox installs as slaves to see the appear, or not appear in pcmanfm side panel.

I am happy that the children of your family have so much fun. The penguins they collect must be in the game Omnibus. If you have the opportunity to get a copy one of theses days, what about posting the pic of the screen here ?

Regards,
Mélodie