[11:19] <johnt> hello folks
[11:24] <ebel> ahoy
[11:27] <johnt> hey - hows it going?
[11:29] <ebel> good good
[11:29] <ebel> yourself?
[11:31] <czajkowski> hows life
[11:32] <johnt> not so bad!
[11:33] <johnt> i was wondering if anyone knew anything about preseeding?
[11:36] <johnt> im trying to set a default wallpaper for a custom install - cant figure out how to do it at all...
[11:37] <ebel> I sorta do, but it's been a while
[11:37] <ebel> the wallpaper is tricky
[11:37] <ebel> IIRC you need to run a post install script that calls a gconf command that sets the default wallpaper
[11:38] <ebel> or a post-install command or whatever
[11:38] <ebel> find out what the the gconf-something command is to change the default wallpaper
[11:38] <ebel> find out how to preseed a command that's to be run at the end
[11:38] <ebel> put the 2 together
[12:23] <johnt> ah - cool, thanks!
[12:28] <johnt> i have a few other gconf settings in the preseed so i think that will work...
[12:48] <johnt> ebel: do you know if there is any easy way to have a system automatically install all updates and reboot when it needs to?
[12:49] <ebel> in the preseed?
[12:49] <ebel> I suppose you could do a post install script.
[12:49] <ebel> you may be able to chroot to the newly installed system, and do the aptitude update/upgrade
[12:50] <ebel> i think it's possible to have a script that runs the first time a machine boots....
[12:50] <johnt> so - i suppose you can do the updates with cron but how would you get it to reboot only when needed (eg. a kernel update) rather than after every update?
[12:50] <johnt> does that kind of make sense?
[12:50] <ebel> do you want it to upgrade the machine every day? or just the first time it's installed?
[12:51] <johnt> every couple of weeks i suppose would be appropriate
[12:52] <ebel> background unatteneded upgrades are usually frowned upon.
[12:52] <ebel> Since it might break your system
[12:52] <johnt> true - but they arnt as bad as a system which _never_ gets updated which seems to be the only alternative...
[12:53] <ebel> upgrade sometimes need to replace configuration files, and ask you a question, i don't know how easy it is to tell aptitude/debconf to always select something
[12:53] <johnt> this is true
[12:53] <johnt> :/
[12:53] <ebel> as for when to reboot, there's gotta be a way to know when your machine needs a reboot, since my indicator thingie tells me when it's upgraded
[12:54] <johnt> yeah - i assume there is a flag set somewhere?
[12:54] <ebel> or a file...
[12:54] <johnt> i just cant seem to find it
[12:55] <ebel> /var/run/reboot-required?
[12:55] <ebel> cf. http://fossplanet.com/f12/when-reboot-after-aptitude-safe-upgrade-146014/
[12:56] <ebel> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutomaticSecurityUpdates or https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutoWeeklyUpdateHowTo
[12:57] <johnt> nice - thanks!
[13:13] <johnt> that cron-apt thing looks interesting
[13:34] <johnt> ebel: any idea which user the scripts in the /etc/cron.*/ directories are run as?
[13:44] <ebel> root
[13:44] <ebel> actually no, the user you specifiy
[13:44] <ebel> bah no. /etc/crontab you specify the user
[13:45] <ebel> for /etc/cron.{daily,weekly,etc}/ they are done as root
[13:45] <ebel> you can also have user specific crontabs with "crontab" command
[13:45] <ebel> and in /etc/cron.d/ you specify the user aswell
[14:00] <johnt> ok cool, that makes sense
[14:09] <johnt> ebel: thanks for your help with this stuff, i really appreciate it!!
[14:09] <ebel> no problemo! any timne
[14:09] <ebel> why are you preseeding things?
[14:19] <johnt> im setting up a system which can be used for virus scanning removable media (usb keys, CDs, etc.). the thinking was that the machine couldnt be running windows because it would just get infected by the same thing we are looking for and end up making the situation worse. the presed is just to create a working machine from a single CD which can be used by people who have never seen a linux box before :D
[14:22] <ebel> cool
[14:22] <ebel> a live cd would be helpful here.
[14:23] <ebel> since everytime you restart it's a fresh clean install
[14:31] <johnt> true - the only problem there is that the virus scanner needs to constantly be updated with new definitions...
[14:34] <tdr112> johnt: could you get the live cd to install a new copy from the net each time it boots
[14:35] <johnt> tdr112: yeah, i suppose you could!
[14:35] <johnt> but im at the end of a 9 month project - i cant really start again :D
[14:39] <tdr112> ah ok
[14:39] <ebel> ah yes, virus definitions
[14:40] <johnt> its kind of cool the way it works - it detects devices being plugged in with udev and kicks off a scan then emails the results to a database in the background
[14:41] <johnt> http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0728/nama.html
[14:41] <johnt> anyone thinking of buying a house? :P
[14:42] <ebel> :P
[14:46] <ebel> IME a lot of the time with linux you can spot 'odd' files on the usb disk
[14:46] <ebel> and delete them
[14:46] <ebel> but a proper virus scanner would be cool
[14:48] <johnt> it acutally uses Kaspersky - not sure why that decision was made