Booting to XTERM

[abasel]

I want to boot my system directly to XTERM and then have it automatically run rdesktop.

How do I do this all from the command line?

If rdesktop is exited, instead of dropping to the xterm command line I would like one of the following to happen (listed in order of preference)
1) Call the rdesktop app again
2) Reboot the machine to repeat the process

[abasel]

Got it sorted, and here's how:

Using a minimal install of Ubuntu 8.04 (I tried the new versions but they would not work on my hardware) I installed Ubuntu so that it logs on automatically into an XTERM, executing RDESKTOP in the process.

Step 1
Download the mini install ISO and create a boot CD.
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/installeri386/current/images/netboot/mini.iso

Step 2
Once installed do the following:


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xorg xterm gdm gksu --no-install-recommends
sudo apt-get install rdesktop
sudo service gdm start


Step 3
Create a file called Default in /etc/gdm/PostLogin (there is a sample file there that you can copy) and add the following line so that the rdp client runs automatically on login.


rdesktop -d domain -g 100% ip -4

Where domain is the domain name and ip is the IP address of the terminal server.

Step 4
Create a guest user to be used for the auto log on. I called this account guest.


adduser guest

Step 5
Edit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf to set up the auto logon as well as a theme error that seems to occur with the minimal install (something to do with Human.xml)


AutomaticLogin=guest
AutomaticLoginEnable=True

TimedLogEnable=true
TimedLogin=guest
TimedLoginDelay=0

GtkTheme=circles
GraphicalTheme=circles

These entries are scattered through out the file so you will need to search for them

Final Comment
Some people might prefer to set TimedLogEnable to false and then set the guest password to something simple like "guest". This will stop the continual logging in, requiring the end-user to enter guest/guest before accessing the RDP session.