this might be a little out of date but 1) I can confirm the menus still don't show up in a NIS set up and 2) the groups for audio, etc, I took care of in /etc/security/group.conf with: gdm;*;*;Al0000-2400;cdrom,floppy,video,audio,plugdev -- No admin menus with NIS users https://launchpad.net/bugs/33727