Multiple User Setup

I am working or restarting my Ubuntu setup again. I was wondering if there were any good guides for making a multiple user setup easier to create. I want my account to be the main sudo-er. I will also need a “work account” with sudo access. Both of these accounts will have developer tools. But each will have separate browser profiles and git repos. A third account for my wife, no sudo access, but preferable access to my main account’s games (Steam, wine, etc.). I also want all accounts to have a custom bash prompt (PS1). I know the basics of user management, so I am mostly looking for any tips or tricks to make this easier to create/ setup. Many thanks.

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Attach both fun and work accounts to sudoers, attach your wives account to your users group, or create a folder shared between you two. Maybe a folder with it’s own group (games?) and permissions based on that to separate your /home and games folder permissions.

I mostly use this as a quick reference for user modifications.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Users_and_groups

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Groups was a good idea for Steam, but it does not seem to work perfectly. At least some Native games seem to share (Kerbal Space Program), but some Proton games do not (Lego DC Super Villains). After digging, it looks like there is a simlink on a Steam.dll file in ./steamapps/common/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user 52 Nov 10 18:42 Steam.dll → /home/user/.local/share/Steam/legacycompat/Steam.dll
My guess is that Proton is doing some stuff to to make things work that is hard coded to user’s .local install of Steam for full support. I may investigate further at some point, but this looks like it could open a tricky can of worms to resolve. Might be a VM or temp-install subject to investigate.
It also appears that when switching between desktop profiles in the games group, the other desktop profile gets logged out of Steam. So it seem that just running Steam might be writing a stateful entry to the default library folder.

Also, for anyone wanting to change the default bash files that get copied into new user accounts, they are located in /etc/skel/.

So, since you have root, symlink your dll in to your wife’s home dir, and give her the permissions needed as well?

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That’s probably going to be where I start, but there are more files in the legacycompat and user Steam folders. I’m not sure what kind of interactions or hard coded paths Steam is operating in there. So I’m not experimenting further in what I intend to be my stable environment. I have a feeling it’s going to require multiple links. Possibly replicating the Steam folder into the games library location with links from our user folders to the shared location.

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