persisting hostname; also games, killing pop-up menu

[jamtat]

I'm experimenting again with tinycore for my little computer lab. Looks like things have developed nicely since last time I tried it and that I might be able to make it work this time. I've got a few questions though, answers to which will help me decide whether it'll be usable for my project.

First, I need to set the hostname for each of the three machines in my lab. I know there's a way to enter it as a boot option from the grub prompt, but I'm rarely going to be present each time these machines boot in order to do that. So, what's the way to make the hostname change permanent, i.e., to set it to a string of my choosing and have that persist across reboots?

Also, for tinycore to be usable for my project there have to be card games. I managed to find spider solitaire, so I know that's available. But what about regular solitaire? Any other card games or other lightweight games for tinycore that seniors would be capable of playing?

Finally, I see that wbar can now be easily edited and certain items removed--just what I need. But those items are still available from the pop-up menu that appears when you right-click on the desktop. So, how do I either edit that menu and have the edits persist across reboots, or else how do I kill the menu altogether? That is, how can I make no menu pop up when a right-click occurs on the desktop?

Thanks,
James

[Lee]

Setting hostname can be done in the kernel command line in your bootloader config file with the host=<hostname> argument.  It can also be set with the hostname command in /opt/bootsync.sh

The ace-of-penguins extension has some card games.

I haven't tried this yet but it seems that with Xprogs now being optional (4.2 release) you can completely remove some of the items that are usually seen in wbar.  The apps (ace-of-penguins etc) would still be available in the menu.

[jamtat]

Tahnks for your reply, Lee. I looked for a bootloader config file but couldn't find one in the usual place (under /boot/grub, for example). Btw is tinycore now using grub2? I'll look into the bootsync.sh method as well.

Thanks for alerting me to ace-of-penguins--guess I somehow managed to overlook it. That and spider solitaire may be all I need in terms of games.

As far as wbar goes, the method now offered for editing it suits my needs just fine--don't see any need for changes there. But I would like to either get rid of or edit the pop-up menu that comes up when your right click on the desktop. Any way of getting rid of or editing that?

James

[Lee]

If you boot tiny core, or just core, from a CD it uses isolinux with its config in /boot/isolinux/isolinux.conf.  I'm not sure what the installer uses these days as I haven't tried it out for a longish time.  I personally use grub4dos, which looks for menu.lst in a few places including the directory where grldr is found, /boot/grub (a la legacy grub) and I think at least one other place that I don't remember.

There may be some generic  way to disable the menu.  The jwm-specific solution for me would be to edit ~/.jwmrc - I don't know about flwm or the other window managers.

I generally don't use the menu but it doesn't bother me either so i just ignore it.

There are probably a good many ways to skin this particular cat.

[jamtat]

Just to clarify, it's not really that the menu bothers me. It's that I don't want certain choices it gives to be available to clueless users of these lab computers. There are several items (App browser, Control Panel) there that, if used in an uninformed way, could screw things up and cause me to have to reinstall everything. So I want either the menu to disappear, or to have some way of removing those items that could, in the wrong hands, wreak havoc. I'm using the stock WM, btw, which I think is the flwm topside choice.

Thanks,
James

[jamtat]

I've turned up a coupla interesting informations in my further prergrinations. One is a wiki entry on editing the menu, found at http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:menu . I tried that solution but so far have not gotten it to work (test installation on a hard drive). Offers kind of a workaround, if I can actually get something like that to take. But my preference would really be to have the pop-up menu just go away. Which leads me to the next link I found . . .

Namely at http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=12188.0 , a thread that gives a link to another wiki entry at http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:creating_custom_command_icons_in_wbar . If I could make the menu go away and get all needed applications into wbar, I'd be a happy camper.

I'll keep tryin to make this work.

James

[jamtat]

The thread at http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=8866.15 --in particular the post by roberts--seems to show the "canonical" method of changing the hostname persistently, btw. The file to edit appears to be /opt/bootsync.sh rather than /opt/bootlocal.sh

James

[jamtat]

Ok. I got the hostname issue ironed out--was actually pretty trivial, once I found out the right files to look at. But the pop-up menu editing's not going so well. Yeah, I did manage to get it to take finally, after prepending "sleep 3" before the lines that replace ~/.wmx. But what ends up being in the menu once the desktop's fully loaded doesn't correspond to the changes I made in the ~/.mymenu/.wmx folder. I think some of this boils down to the way this system is set up to auto-insert menu entries when programs are installed to the system--a wonderful touch for those setting up a mostly single-user system, but a detraction for those trying to set up a public terminal type arrangement. I still think killing the pop-up menu altogether might be the best option for my usage scenario--especially if I am able, as it seems I will be, to add programs to wbar. So, any possibility of simply killing the pop-up menu that appears when you left-click on the desktop?

Thanks,
James

[curaga]

I think it would be easier to use a configurable WM such as JWM, where you can remove the menu altogether with a line.

To remove it from flwm, you'd need to edit the source and build.

[jamtat]

Thanks for your reply, curaga. That's what I thought would have to be done. Meantime, I'm experimenting with a new approach that involves essentially building up a system from scratch (using as the base something like what used to be called microcore) and installing as a WM, my old friend evilwm. That looks like it may very well give the results I need since that WM lacks any kind of menu but still seems to play well with wbar. Look for further questions about doing that in a different forum.

James

[jamtat]

I ended up going with curaga's suggestion to use JWM since evilwm had some issues with wbar and because I deemed it might be intimidating to my users. To get rid of the desktop pop-up menu under JWM I edited ~/.jwmrc, deleting the lines <RootMenu height="12" onroot="123"> and </RootMenu> and everything between. Voila, no more pop-up menu.

James

[coreplayer2]

I thought you would find the other method easier as it will do exactly what you needed in your other thread,  described in a wiki which I'd forgot to show ealier