kiosk-modemate-desktop

Mate Kiosk Mode - customize desktop context menu & shutdown/lock buttons

my goal is to configure a minimal Mate desktop that allows only Firefox and limited file management.

Up to now, I managed to strip down most of the desktop by editing the menu files in: /etc/xdg/menus/:

so that it looks now like this:

Mate-Menu

This strips the menu for all user, which is not optimal, but will do for this scenario. But I would also like to remove or disable the "lock screen" and "shutdown" buttons.

I tried this by configuring an appropriate dconf-Profile. There are settings that sound promising - but have no effect:

# /etc/dconf/db/remote-desktop.d/
# mate-menu
[org/mate/mate-menu/plugins/system_management]
**show-quit=false**
show-package-manager=false
**show-lock-screen=false**
**show-control-center=false**
show-logout=true
show-terminal=false

Note: the "**" are for emphasis only, the config does not contain them! Other settings in the same profile have the desired effect, e.g.:

# mate-caja
[org/mate/caja/desktop]
computer-icon-visible=false
trash-icon-visible=false

# mate-panel
[org/mate/panel/general]
locked-down=true

Has anyone an idea how to disable/remove the lock & shutdown buttons?

The other pain point is he desktop context menu:

Desktop Context Menu

I haven't found a way to remove/disable this or at least the menu entry "Starter anlegen" which would allow the user to create a launcher shortcut with an arbitrary executable...

Do you have an idea how to "defuse" this menu?

I'm using Mate Version 1.24.0+1.

My dconf-profile looks like this: dconf-profile structure

less /etc/dconf/profile/remote-desktop 
user-db:user 
system-db:remote-desktop

I compile it into the dconf db with:

sudo dconf update

I activate it for the desired users by putting:

export DCONF_PROFILE=remote-desktop

in their ~/.profile and ~/.bashrc

The dconf profile seems to work generally, because the Caja settings take hold.

Solution

  • To answer my own question - at least partially:

    One of the problems was the name of the DCONF profile "remote-desktop" - the dash is not an allowed character here. So I renamed my db and profile from "remote-desktop" to "remotedesktop". Still no breakthrough.

    Then I reinstalled mate, dropping "brisk-menu" from the installation and NOT adding a top panel menu. Instead I used dconf to add just Logout and Firefox launcher objects to the top panel. You have to edit the list of panel object-ids to make these object visible and to prevent mate from "bitching" about missing applets (like brisk menu).

    Now I have the desired effect (logout and starting Firefox is accessible, but not Lock-Screen and Shutdown).