Choosing Your Own Image

For members of elab-image-managers

This guide is for people allowed to choose which desktop image their own desktops start from — for example, someone leading a group who wants the full workstation while the group runs on the lite image, or someone testing a new image before it is offered to everyone. If you need this and don't hold the role, ask your platform operator to add you; it takes effect the next time you sign in. The role grants nothing else.

Your eLab team sets which image each desktop type starts from, and for almost everyone that is simply what they get. With this role, a Your desktop image panel appears beside the launch buttons, and whatever you pick there applies to your desktops alone — nobody else's launch changes.

What each image carries is listed in Tools on the Desktop.

Choosing an image

Pick the image in the Your desktop image panel, then launch as usual. Choose The eLab's choice to go back to the image everyone else gets.

What to expect

• It starts more slowly. The waiting capacity the eLab keeps ready has the eLab's image already downloaded, not yours, so your desktop takes minutes to start rather than seconds.
• The choice stands until you change it — including for scheduled starts, which use whatever you had chosen when they fire.
• A running desktop keeps the image it started with. A new choice applies to your next launch.
• Losing the role removes the choice. If you are taken out of the group, your override is cleared the next time you sign in, and your desktops go back to the eLab's image.