how can I customise the launcher icons and add a few files to the homedir of the to-be-user?

Question

I've looked at In OEM Installations can we edit final-user applications setting? and How do I pre-install Ubuntu for someone (OEM install)? The latter offered an amazing guide on how to perform the actual OEM install, but doesn't answer "how can I customise the launcher icons and add a few files to the homedir of the to-be-user".

Neither of them offered the answer I fear.

The OEM setup is fine, works well too. I just can't get a few dot files made for the to-be-user. One is a config file for our VPN client (server name and the likes) and the other are config files for our vmware view client. It's for a-technical users, hence the OEM option being so nice.

I assumed at first, since you can change "settings", I'd add them as oem user, but since its homedir gets removed - no dice.

I tried via upstart and init.d several times but I couldn't get it to execute. I also tried to use the System Prefs > Startup Applications. I've tried looking at oem-config/late_command but it's beyond me. I am sorry.

I've been looking for the answer for over 2 days now, tried everything I could find - but I've come up empty handed.

I forgot to mention: My attempts (and a few versions for various alternatives to the OEM install) can be found here https://gist.github.com/moonwitch

Answer 1

The directory to use in this case is the /etc/skel. Here you can create all files that you want your users to have once they create their accounts. This directory already have files that you can modify too:

ls -al /etc/skel
total 28
drwxr-xr-x.   2 root root  4096 mar 24 11:46 .
drwxr-xr-x. 174 root root 12288 abr  2 19:15 ..
-rw-r--r--.   1 root root   220 dic 31  2012 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--.   1 root root  3392 dic 31  2012 .bashrc
-rw-r--r--.   1 root root   675 dic 31  2012 .profile