Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com): > I have two reasons someone (not me, but somebody) would prefer to start > up in a GUI: > > 1) Some members of my family consider it an immense challenge to have >to remember to input their username and password at the console, >recognize that they're logged in (as opposed to have fatfingered >their password and need to try again), and then type "startx". > > 2) Some people can't be trusted to type the command like this: > >startx;exit > >so that the a badguy who terminates the GUI doesn't have access to >their command prompt (although they could just access xterm within X >anyway). Which as the legit user is _very_ easy to prevent: E.g., if disinclined to type the aforementioned, create shell script /usr/local/bin/go that does that, and use it instead after login (if you want to start X11). > Personally, I always boot to CLI and startx to GUI. 'startx' (or equivalently 'xinit ' or countless other variations) really has no significant disadvantage or advantage over a display manager, per se, except tying up a VT while X11 is running - and I suppose you might be able to fix even that by backgrounding it. It's mostly just a matter of local preference. And IMO a well-customised display manager (certainly including xdm) looks neat. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Wed, 20 Jul 2016 00:40:13 +0200 aitor_czr wrote: > On 07/19/2016 07:38 PM, Robert Storey wrote: > > About SLIM as a display manager - I'm fine with it, even if it's > > not really maintained. The important thing is that it's fast, > > stable, not riddled with security holes (including systemd). I'm > > open though to changing to something better, if there is something > > better. > > > > cheers, > > Robert > > I find it good enough :) > >Aitor. I've got no problem with slim. Especially if we can revisit for Ascii. SteveT Steve Litt July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 09:23:47 -1000 Joel Roth wrote: > emnin...@riseup.net wrote: > > And as i said before, lxdm is nearly equally leightweight as slim > > and as far as i see not really systemd infected - yet (?). > > Why do you like using a display manager rather than login > and startx? I have two reasons someone (not me, but somebody) would prefer to start up in a GUI: 1) Some members of my family consider it an immense challenge to have to remember to input their username and password at the console, recognize that they're logged in (as opposed to have fatfingered their password and need to try again), and then type "startx". 2) Some people can't be trusted to type the command like this: startx;exit so that the a badguy who terminates the GUI doesn't have access to their command prompt (although they could just access xterm within X anyway). Personally, I always boot to CLI and startx to GUI. SteveT Steve Litt July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On 20/07/16 05:24, Steve Litt wrote: > On Wed, 20 Jul 2016 02:03:24 +1200 > Daniel Reurich wrote: > > >> LTSP provides more then just financial benefits. I maintain 3 sites >> using it for computer hubs that provide basic internet access and >> computer skills training. The benefits of that centralisation both of >> the applications platform as well and user storage is easiest this >> way. It' performs great and is easy to maintain. Adding another >> terminal or 2 is dead easy (plug it in and set it to PXE boot). > > Just so we're all on the same page, the word "terminal" in your > preceding sentence really means a (perhaps very low horsepower) computer > sans hard disk and CD, right? > Yup, in this case HP thin clients. But if I manage to keep the platform on Linux (there is move to switch it all to windows) I'm likely to upgrade to an arm device for the terminals. -- Daniel Reurich Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd. 021 797 722 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On 07/19/2016 07:38 PM, Robert Storey wrote: About SLIM as a display manager - I'm fine with it, even if it's not really maintained. The important thing is that it's fast, stable, not riddled with security holes (including systemd). I'm open though to changing to something better, if there is something better. cheers, Robert I find it good enough :) Aitor. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Am Tue, 19 Jul 2016 22:06:11 + schrieb Jaromil : > but then one really needs to be pro-active about it here. So: if > anyone wants a DM that is not packaged, even before asking for it > should do an effort at its packaging. lxdm is there already (in ascii but not jessie). I tried to do a configuration in line with the devuan style guidelines (for the moment, i think it's ok, from this point of view) ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
Quoting fsmithred (fsmith...@gmail.com): > Yeah, I know there's a lot of gnome in xfce, and gnome virtual file > system does sound familiar. Happily, I've been getting along fine > without gvfs since upgrading to devuan jessie about six months ago. > I'm ok with xfce like this, and I'm ok with a plain window manager. > I've used several in the past. > > In fact, the experiment was a success. I wanted to test the often > repeated assertion that libsystemd0 doesn't do anything if systemd is > not installed. Now I know that it's not true. You provided information > that helped me do that. Thank you for posting it. You're entirely welcome. Saying libsystemd0 'does something' merely because higher-layer GNOME code probed it for a function and then decided to do or not do something based on what it found (my high-confidence surmise about your gvfs anecdote) entails very peculiar construing of the verb 'to do' -- and I'm pretty sure hardly anyone else uses the verb quite that way. That would be like saying I 'did something' while asleep because someone recorded my snoring and then used a clip of it as rhythm line for a pop song. (Polyrhythmic, no doubt.) Again, my reaction to such things (such as you mentioned, not to my snoring) would be (and is) to kick GNOME and anything sharing its core -- such as MATE, Cinnamon, Unity, or XFCE -- to the curb (or kerb, on the civilised side of the Atlantic[1]), but suit yourself, of course. [1] http://grammarist.com/spelling/curb-kerb/ ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Am Tue, 19 Jul 2016 19:57:35 + schrieb Joel Roth : > emnin...@riseup.net wrote: > > And as i said before, lxdm is nearly equally leightweight as slim > > and as far as i see not really systemd infected - yet (?). > > Why do you like using a display manager rather than login > and startx? Esthetics? Coherence with the DE? ;) Essentially, you're right ... ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
On 07/19/2016 01:51 PM, Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting fsmithred (fsmith...@gmail.com): > >> Rick, I don't understand your reasoning here. What I see is that gvfs >> can do something when the real libsystemd0 is installed that it can't >> do without libsystemd0 - that is, it shows removable drives on the >> desktop. The presence of systemd itself is not required for this - >> it's not installed. >> >> Gnome probably has nothing at all to do with this. The only gnome >> packages installed here are gnome-accessibility-themes, gnome-icons, >> libgnome-keyring and libsoup-gnome. I'm running xfce desktop. > > You know why, some years back, I stepped carefully away from XFCE4? > Because it uses (shares) a very great deal of GNOME's core software > infrastructure. > > You know what 'gvfs' is short for? GNOME virtual file system. Now you > know. (Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.) > > I'm sorry that the GNOME brittle software used in your DE breaks a bit > when you kick away a piece of what it checks for, but that's > unfortunately exactly what I have come to expect it to do, even when the > label on the tin says 'XFCE'. > > I wish you luck with your experiment, but I'd honestly recommend trying > something else, instead. LXQt seems promising for people who like DEs, > or Enlightenment. (Personally, I'm just not a DE person.) > > Above is of course entirely my opinion. You'll do what you wish, and > 'Good on ya!' as the Aussies say. > Yeah, I know there's a lot of gnome in xfce, and gnome virtual file system does sound familiar. Happily, I've been getting along fine without gvfs since upgrading to devuan jessie about six months ago. I'm ok with xfce like this, and I'm ok with a plain window manager. I've used several in the past. In fact, the experiment was a success. I wanted to test the often repeated assertion that libsystemd0 doesn't do anything if systemd is not installed. Now I know that it's not true. You provided information that helped me do that. Thank you for posting it. -fsr ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Jaromil wrote: > On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Joel Roth wrote: > > > Why do you like using a display manager rather than login > > and startx? > > good question I wasn't daring to pose so far. > > login and startx (and ~/.xinitrc configuration) work like a charm on > Devuan... and anywhere else FWIW. plus give you the big advantage of > not having to start X to execute quick text-only tasks. > > FTR whenever I *need* a DM then I use XDM and ~/.xsession conf. I'm a bit confused about .xinitrc and .xsession. Looks like they're almost interchangeable. From 'man startx' Note that in the Debian system, what many people traditionally put in the .xinitrc file should go in .xsession instead; this permits the same X environment to be presented whether startx, xdm, or xinit is used to start the X session. > the talent of golinux is the main reason why I'm keen to facilitate > the sugar coating of Devuan, because her and hellekin's ideas may > really bring some innovation in making pleasant the visual > presentation of an OS. Although repeating myself, I advocate distributions default to login and startx, just so everyone gets the idea that the terminal is available. Maybe if a sufficient multitude appreciate and expect a terminal, we'll start to get a shell in phones, tablets, etc. in future. Unrealistic, probably, that seeing the terminal equates to using it, but *never* seeing a terminal OTOH helps people be unfamiliary and fearful. Joel -- Joel Roth ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com): > OK, I think I see. I was assuming that there's no graphical terminal > cheaper than a cheap commodity computer with mobo. To the extent that > there are graphical terminals cheaper than commodity computers, it > makes sense. Yeah, well, you put your finger directly on the main economic question. I _tend_ to side with the people who say de-minimus computers are now so damned cheap that non-autonomous consoles don't make economic sense. Having seen just how cheaply a Raspberry Pi 2 can be thrown into a little plastic box with a little power supply, if someone offered me a chance to invest in a firm manufacturing non-Linux-capable terminals competing with them, I'd say 'You first.' At the same time, if others want to try, I'm not opposed to that -per se-, not that they're asking my opinion. Maybe they just happen to own a big pile of terminals. ;-> ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Flexible software (Was: F1 and special usernames on the login screen)
On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 09:57:41PM +0200, Jaromil wrote: > On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Simon Walter wrote: > > > Since this is Devuan (something about veteran *unix* admins, and > > coming from Debian - the *universal* OS), I would not have expected > > Devuan's fans and users to be so close minded. > > I think anyone here should stop taking conversations in DNG as > representative of Devuan. Please note that even those who denigrated > our efforts, names the shitdevuansays hooligans, have done so. I know > the gmane title for the list is misleading (this is not the "devuan > development" list), yet we have not choosen that title for it nor have > never declared this to be a place representative of devuan. > > Devuan has official channels for communication and people who are > appointed to such a communication. As one of them let me say that, > since many here read and run code, I recommend taking the actual > software as the best means of communicating what Devuan is about. Could you point us to those proper Devuan channels? Some of us are genuinely interested in challenges when developing the distribution, and getting to know the ways Devuan developers solved those challenges. Signal to noise ratio is very low here, for each one email with solid technicalities there are at least dozen useless emails. I would happily leave dng if I could read archives of real development list. -- Tomasz Torcz Morality must always be based on practicality. xmpp: zdzich...@chrome.pl-- Baron Vladimir Harkonnen ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Joel Roth wrote: > Why do you like using a display manager rather than login > and startx? good question I wasn't daring to pose so far. login and startx (and ~/.xinitrc configuration) work like a charm on Devuan... and anywhere else FWIW. plus give you the big advantage of not having to start X to execute quick text-only tasks. FTR whenever I *need* a DM then I use XDM and ~/.xsession conf. the talent of golinux is the main reason why I'm keen to facilitate the sugar coating of Devuan, because her and hellekin's ideas may really bring some innovation in making pleasant the visual presentation of an OS. but then one really needs to be pro-active about it here. So: if anyone wants a DM that is not packaged, even before asking for it should do an effort at its packaging. ciao ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote: > Multiseat is unimportant, barely significant. The price of computers > has dropped enough that the ones with UIs are now personal > devices. The architecture of backends has changed such that UIDs > aren't used for customer IDs. > A few exceptions remain, increasingly rare. I'm sure there are people who > have used that blue icon near the top right corner of the android lock > screen. I absolutely agree with this assesment. Actually, I'm quite sure we are winning an easy game. What is surprising is how many people, supposedly professionals, are actually willing to deny this. I'm not a conspirationist by nature, yet I come to think there is a double agenda here. I can't think so many people are stupid, I'd rather think they are lying. The biggest industrial interest I can perceive behind systemd is actually the full spectrum implementation of DRM from the hardware to the software stack. This is why messages like the one sent by the other Arnt on this list shouldn't be overlooked https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/20160612.045420.d84a3334.en.html as well as the US patent 20150040216-A1 "Systems and Methods for Restricting Application Binary Interfaces" filed by Paul Moore, Dan Walsh and Lennart Poettering on behalf of Red Hat. ciao ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Flexible software (Was: F1 and special usernames on the login screen)
On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 09:57:41PM +0200, Jaromil wrote: > On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Simon Walter wrote: > > > Since this is Devuan (something about veteran *unix* admins, and > > coming from Debian - the *universal* OS), I would not have expected > > Devuan's fans and users to be so close minded. > > I think anyone here should stop taking conversations in DNG as > representative of Devuan. Please note that even those who denigrated > our efforts, names the shitdevuansays hooligans, have done so. I know > the gmane title for the list is misleading (this is not the "devuan > development" list), yet we have not choosen that title for it nor have > never declared this to be a place representative of devuan. It definitely was not the name I suggested when I asked gmane to set up the list mirror. -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Flexible software (Was: F1 and special usernames on the login screen)
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016, Simon Walter wrote: > Since this is Devuan (something about veteran *unix* admins, and > coming from Debian - the *universal* OS), I would not have expected > Devuan's fans and users to be so close minded. I think anyone here should stop taking conversations in DNG as representative of Devuan. Please note that even those who denigrated our efforts, names the shitdevuansays hooligans, have done so. I know the gmane title for the list is misleading (this is not the "devuan development" list), yet we have not choosen that title for it nor have never declared this to be a place representative of devuan. this is: an open discussion mailinglist born out of the Debian systemd GR Init vote aftermath and it keeps welcoming people debating what is before and after that episode, with barely any moderation. Devuan has official channels for communication and people who are appointed to such a communication. As one of them let me say that, since many here read and run code, I recommend taking the actual software as the best means of communicating what Devuan is about. At last I wholeheartedly enjoy reading your reflexions and think they do contain some precious wisdom. happy hacking! ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
emnin...@riseup.net wrote: > And as i said before, lxdm is nearly equally leightweight as slim and > as far as i see not really systemd infected - yet (?). Why do you like using a display manager rather than login and startx? -- Joel Roth ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Am Tue, 19 Jul 2016 17:38:16 + schrieb Robert Storey : > About SLIM as a display manager - I'm fine with it, even if it's not > really maintained. The important thing is that it's fast, stable, not > riddled with security holes (including systemd). I'm open though to > changing to something better, if there is something better. When i installed jessie - on another machine with big overheating problems (amd cpu & graphics) slim never ever worked, only console login and startx. irrwahn helped me out (he even made a bugreport somewhere) and in the end lxdm was the login manager which worked. After that experience i sticked with it also installing later on ascii on a less problematic machine. And as i said before, lxdm is nearly equally leightweight as slim and as far as i see not really systemd infected - yet (?). ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Open-RC on devuan - some questions
Am Tue, 19 Jul 2016 16:22:41 + schrieb Steve Litt : > The older I get, the more I think the easiest route is to use > wpa_passphrase, then, as root, append its output > into /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. Crude but effective. > Travelling wifi on laptops is a mess, always has been. I agree, essentially. networkmanager seems a no go to me because of its indentation with systemd (?); wicd is somehow better but far from ideal, imho. I'd like to encourage you to try out, may be just for a moment, ceni (which thanks to ozi is in our repositories now). Unfortunately it relays on ifupdown (therefore strictly debian/devuan). You'd need to use a machine of your wife ;) - but: do it. I think it's a great and very simple tool. Cheers. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Open-RC on devuan - some questions
Am Tue, 19 Jul 2016 16:22:41 + schrieb Rob Owens : > You got me interested and I just installed OpenRC on Devuan Jessie. > I got the following message: > > ** > *** WARNING: if you are replacing sysv-rc by OpenRC, then you must *** > *** reboot immediately using the following command:*** > for file in /etc/rc0.d/K*; do s=`basename $(readlink "$file")` ; > /etc/init.d/$s stop; done > *** once rebooted, you could safely backup and remove /etc/rc?.d *** > ** > > Did you follow those instructions? Yes! > I see I have no /etc/conf.d. To me this means I really do not have > OpenRC, as conf.d is one of the key benefits of OpenRC in my opinion. Exactly, that's what i meant ... ;) :-( I'm happy someone else sees my situation and it's not my stupidity :) But, may be you saw the msg of jaromil that there is in the sink a completely redone devuan package of openrc - which would make me happy. Cheers. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 10:59:26 -0700 Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com): > > > On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 10:08:01 -0700 > > Rick Moen wrote: > > > > > It fits logically into the 'effective use of autonomous host > > > w/console stations having the independent local processing > > > ability that mere consoles lack' category, of course. Was that > > > actually a question? > > > > Yes. What would be the advantage of LTSP over kmscon or systemd? > > What would be the disadvantage? How would one choose between LTSP > > and kmscon (I'm assuming nobody on this list would choose > > systemd)? > > Well, LTSP (and variations thereon) is a very attractive option if > your consoles have motherboards, adequate CPUs, adequate RAM, and the > ability to run Linux. Technically, they don't need local mass > storage, because they can netboot. > > LTSP (and variations thereon) is _outside_ the realm of possibility if > your consoles are just consoles and don't each include a Linux-capable > computer. OK, I think I see. I was assuming that there's no graphical terminal cheaper than a cheap commodity computer with mobo. To the extent that there are graphical terminals cheaper than commodity computers, it makes sense. I hadn't thought much about several people using the same computer for different GUI tasks in the last 12 years. SteveT Steve Litt July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com): > On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 10:08:01 -0700 > Rick Moen wrote: > > > It fits logically into the 'effective use of autonomous host w/console > > stations having the independent local processing ability that mere > > consoles lack' category, of course. Was that actually a question? > > Yes. What would be the advantage of LTSP over kmscon or systemd? What > would be the disadvantage? How would one choose between LTSP and kmscon > (I'm assuming nobody on this list would choose systemd)? Well, LTSP (and variations thereon) is a very attractive option if your consoles have motherboards, adequate CPUs, adequate RAM, and the ability to run Linux. Technically, they don't need local mass storage, because they can netboot. LTSP (and variations thereon) is _outside_ the realm of possibility if your consoles are just consoles and don't each include a Linux-capable computer. People looking fond of multiseat capability wish to bring about a renaissance of non-autonomous console computing. I'm not among them, but consoles did make economic sense decades ago when I was in high school and when minicomputers were in their heyday, and maybe they will again. Or not. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
Quoting fsmithred (fsmith...@gmail.com): > Rick, I don't understand your reasoning here. What I see is that gvfs > can do something when the real libsystemd0 is installed that it can't > do without libsystemd0 - that is, it shows removable drives on the > desktop. The presence of systemd itself is not required for this - > it's not installed. > > Gnome probably has nothing at all to do with this. The only gnome > packages installed here are gnome-accessibility-themes, gnome-icons, > libgnome-keyring and libsoup-gnome. I'm running xfce desktop. You know why, some years back, I stepped carefully away from XFCE4? Because it uses (shares) a very great deal of GNOME's core software infrastructure. You know what 'gvfs' is short for? GNOME virtual file system. Now you know. (Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.) I'm sorry that the GNOME brittle software used in your DE breaks a bit when you kick away a piece of what it checks for, but that's unfortunately exactly what I have come to expect it to do, even when the label on the tin says 'XFCE'. I wish you luck with your experiment, but I'd honestly recommend trying something else, instead. LXQt seems promising for people who like DEs, or Enlightenment. (Personally, I'm just not a DE person.) Above is of course entirely my opinion. You'll do what you wish, and 'Good on ya!' as the Aussies say. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
Quoting Simon Hobson (li...@thehobsons.co.uk): > Rick Moen wrote: > > > Remember that bit I posted about how /usr/bin/ssh makes dynamic library > > calls to sonames of two Kerberos libraries, even on the overwhelming > > majority of systems that do not implement Kerberos? > ... > > 'Trust' in the sense you use the word just isn't in that. > > But it is. > Have you actually checked any (or all) of the libraries to be sure ? This is a bit silly, so-broad-as-to-be-meaningless application of the word 'trust'. I don't, in the general case, personally inspect any of the binaries or libraries on my systems, nor in the general case do I compile those myself, nor do I perform local diverse double-compiling to prevent application of Ken Thompson's 1984 'Reflections on Trusting Trust' moby hack, either. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/01/countering_trus.html https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf Now, are we done with the ritual paranoia dance? > The point is, which you seem to keep missing, is that I do not have > this level of trust in anyone pushing systemd. No, I 'get' your oft-repeated personal opinion. I'm just not impressed with the allegedly sinister, alleged threat of distro-maintained interface glue package libsystemd0. Nor am I impressed with the alleged problem of any 'amount of noise surrounding' that topic or any other. Because I have a few clues about software and open source, and have reasonable confidence I follow what's going on, on an ongoing basis. > Plus, as someone else pointed out, to permit libsystemd0 (or equivs > *IFF* it doesn't break packages - which it does with ClamAV) is > tacitly accepting that these packages are OK to blindly depend on it. You seem to be using some strange, emotionally tinged sense of the words 'accept' and 'OK'. Am I tacitly 'accepting' that Kerberos libraries are 'OK' on my Kerberos-less systems because I am 'accepting' the dynamic library links in /usr/bin/ssh? I don't even really know what that means. I tolerate the fact that the dynamic library call to two locally-pointless Kerberos libraries exist, in the sense that I've not rushed out and recompiled/rebuilt package openssh-client to eliminate the vestigial and basically meaningless library dependency. Which in turn because I'm a bit busy and have other, better things to worry about. If I _really_ needed a new hobby, I suppose I could run Gentoo/Funtoo and spend my idle hours on USE flags and running compiles to eliminate every vestigial library call -- but I don't. > If the packagers can package that dependency and not get pushback from > the users, then there's no incentive to consider if it might not be > "right". And why the Gehenna would they do that? Do they have some blood feud with your clan? To my knowledge, they don't with mine. I lead a rather more blessedly boring life, and have time for things like gardening, and occasionally administering Linux systems. I don't even have it in for the Kerberos people, and to my knowledge they have only benign (if complex and poorly documented) plans for my greater metropolitan region -- though I keep a wary eye to the south where dread Stanford University lies, a hotbed of Kerberos radicalism. They even do AFS there! (Perhaps they can be forced to pay for a border fence.) > It comes back to - how much is it "programmers are lazy" vs how much > is "well actually it is real work". Please figure that out and report back to us. I'll mail you a shiny pre-Ted Heath-era pre-decimalisation penny for your efforts. ;-> ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 10:08:01 -0700 Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com): > > > Where does Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP, > > http://www.ltsp.org/) fit into this discussion? > > It fits logically into the 'effective use of autonomous host w/console > stations having the independent local processing ability that mere > consoles lack' category, of course. Was that actually a question? Yes. What would be the advantage of LTSP over kmscon or systemd? What would be the disadvantage? How would one choose between LTSP and kmscon (I'm assuming nobody on this list would choose systemd)? Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
This discussion (which started with just documenting what you could do at the login screen) has certainly taken on a life of its own. For my own needs, I'm not concerned about multiseat, but recognize that a few (probably very few) others are. I suppose if you really want to protect against a single user shutting down or rebooting, you'd have to disable magic keys. Many distros have done that - one of the first things I do after installation is to enable this feature. I should point out that this neat little trick will work under just about any circumstances - if you've got some runaway process eating 99% of memory and want to force a reboot, this should kill it. Generally, it's better to resort to magic keys, as opposed to hitting the reset button or pulling the wall outlet. Magic keys are supposed to terminate processes in an orderly fashion, which is not the case when you pull the power cord from the wall.\\ About SLIM as a display manager - I'm fine with it, even if it's not really maintained. The important thing is that it's fast, stable, not riddled with security holes (including systemd). I'm open though to changing to something better, if there is something better. cheers, Robert ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Wed, 20 Jul 2016 02:03:24 +1200 Daniel Reurich wrote: > LTSP provides more then just financial benefits. I maintain 3 sites > using it for computer hubs that provide basic internet access and > computer skills training. The benefits of that centralisation both of > the applications platform as well and user storage is easiest this > way. It' performs great and is easy to maintain. Adding another > terminal or 2 is dead easy (plug it in and set it to PXE boot). Just so we're all on the same page, the word "terminal" in your preceding sentence really means a (perhaps very low horsepower) computer sans hard disk and CD, right? SteveT Steve Litt July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com): > Where does Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP, http://www.ltsp.org/) > fit into this discussion? It fits logically into the 'effective use of autonomous host w/console stations having the independent local processing ability that mere consoles lack' category, of course. Was that actually a question? ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 01:29:23 -0700 Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Arnt Gulbrandsen (a...@gulbrandsen.priv.no): > > Simon Walter writes: > > > >> Oh the insolence. Amazing. "You're holding it wrong" comes to > >> mind. There is this guy named Lennart who might agree with you. > > > > Quite likely he might, he's not stupid after all. And I agree too: > > Multiseat is unimportant, barely significant. The price of > > computers has dropped enough that the ones with UIs are now > > personal devices. > > Might be obvious, but just mentioning: 'Multiseat' (GNOME/system > implementation of which proximately caused the systemd-logind > omnishambles of several years ago) needs to be distinguished from > multiuser. > > Unix has been inherently, by design, _multiuser_ since its beginning, > and I for one would be quite sad if my Linux servers were suddenly > 'personal devices': E.g., a Web / SMTPd / ftpd / sshd / rsyncd / > NTPd server like the one in my garage suddenly failing to serve > remote users would be a misfortune. > > I have to confess that I personally didn't understand how multiseat > differs from multiuser on Linux until quite recently. Pro bono > publico: It concerns simultaneous _local_ users. The Linux kernel[1] > can, unaided, make _only one_ (local) virtual terminal active at a > time. Sure, you can (e.g.) have one X11 server attached to /dev/tty7 > and another to /dev/tty8, but it turns out that any time one's > active, the other can't be -- even if two physical sets of console > hardware are attached. So, multiseat is, in short, a system software > elaboration to fix that. > > This missing kernel functionality isn't important to either you, Simon > Walter, or me, but it's a genuine limitation nonetheless, and there's > nothing wrong _per se_ with offering ways around that limitation. > Note that systemd-consoled is not the only candidate: kmscon > preceded it, albeit development is currently stalled. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kmscon > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiseat_configuration#GNU.2FLinux also > mentions several other current implementations. > > So, multiseat is _not_ a systemd invention, nor a systemd monopoly. > > Latter page mentions 'Multiseat setups are great for schools, > libraries, and family computers.' Arguably true, _maybe_. Depends > on the economics of additional consoles versus extra complete > computers, I guess. I enjoyed using minicomputers during high > school: A modern revival of that computing model using Linux might > make money sense or might not, depending. Otherwise, I wouldn't say > today that it'll necessarily be 'unimportant' in years to come. Where does Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP, http://www.ltsp.org/) fit into this discussion? IIRC LTSP existed long before systemd, and before kmscon too. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Quoting Tomasz Torcz (to...@pipebreaker.pl): > So it would be sensible to ask for root password IF there are other > (remote) users logged in. If there is no one logged in, shutdown/reboot > should be possible without entering root password. You speak as if the consequences of host shutdown (or reboot) were trivial, but that is not the case: A local user who has shutdown the host has terminated all processes (not just his/her own), and made the entire machine unavailable to everyone. Seen that way, I would hope you'd understand that by default shutdown (and to a lesser extent reboot) should be a privileged operation. Of course if your local usage model makes things otherwise, luckily it's not difficult for you as sysadmin to give console users those powers and whatever other powers you wish. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Open-RC on devuan - some questions
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 10:02:46 +0200 wrote: > May be you remember, i also tried Void but, may be due to my linuxwise > incompetence, i found it not so easy to configure and sometimes (for > the wpasupplicant/dhcpcd thing) confusing. Void Linux is very difficult the first month or two you use it. I was asking five or ten questions a day on #xbps the first couple weeks. Wpasupplicant/dhcpcd is obscenely confusing, made more so by Void's use of magic configs tucked somewhere (you find them, I can't) that link the two together. But then again, NetworkManager and Wicd can get confusing when things don't go just right. The older I get, the more I think the easiest route is to use wpa_passphrase, then, as root, append its output into /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. Crude but effective. Travelling wifi on laptops is a mess, always has been. SteveT Steve Litt July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 12:17:32 +0900 Simon Walter wrote: > On 07/19/2016 11:53 AM, Adam Borowski wrote: > ... > > All that talk about multiseat being important or even relevant > > today is IMO bullshit. > ... > > Oh the insolence. Amazing. "You're holding it wrong" comes to mind. > There is this guy named Lennart who might agree with you. :-) Before Adam pronounces "multiseat" "bullshit", and before you associate him with poetterputz, I think an agreement needs to be reached on the exact meaning of "multiseat." SteveT Steve Litt July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 04:25:59PM +0200, Tomasz Torcz wrote: [cut] > > So it would be sensible to ask for root password IF there are other > (remote) users logged in. If there is no one logged in, shutdown/reboot > should be possible without entering root password. > Above heuristic could be default, with additional setting available > to always/never require root password to shutdown. > If I can contribute 2 pence to this prolonged discussion, I would point out that deciding who and how has the ability to shut-down or reboot a given machine is something that pertains to the *policy* decided by the administrator of that machine. Login managers and other amenities could (or should, according to some of you) provide the *mechanism* to shut down and reboot a machine, but cannot and should not enforce any policy at all about shutting down and rebooting. The reason for that is the same that has produced this prolonged thread: there cannot be any agreement about policies, since everybody has his/her own vision of how his/her computer should behave, and all of them are *correct*. There is a very good explanation to why Unix has been successful in the last 45 years: it has provided *mechanisms*, and a lot of them, for basically any possible operation you might be willing to do on your system, even those which the original creators did not have a clue about. But it has always avoided to enforce any *policy*, i.e. precise ways in which those mechanish have to be used to make sense. Why? Simply because there is a potentially infinite number of policies (and you will realise that if you think that unix flavors currently run on anything, from microcontrollers to supercomputers) and no single size will fit them all. Software should provide mechanisms, and as many and as variegate as possible, but making sense of mechanisms and composing them into policies is the role of the system administrator. The large majority of seasoned unix users and admins would agree that anything that defies this simple principle is totally against the unix phylosophy, and that any discussion that prescinds this simple principle will never converge to an agreement. My2Pence KatolaZ -- [ ~.,_ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ - GLUGCT -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ "+. katolaz [at] freaknet.org --- katolaz [at] yahoo.it ] [ @) http://kalos.mine.nu --- Devuan GNU + Linux User ] [ @@) http://maths.qmul.ac.uk/~vnicosia -- GPG: 0B5F062F ] [ (@@@) Twitter: @KatolaZ - skype: katolaz -- github: KatolaZ ] ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 16:25:59 +0200 Tomasz Torcz wrote: > On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 07:43:51PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote: > > Quoting Brad Campbell (lists2...@fnarfbargle.com): > > > > > This is one I find interesting. I've never used an operating > > > system where it was required to know root credentials to halt or > > > reboot the machine from the login screen. > > > > Remember, Unix is a multiuser operating system, and also one > > supporting both local and remote users, who would be annoyed by > > someone deciding to cut them off. > > So it would be sensible to ask for root password IF there are other > (remote) users logged in. If there is no one logged in, > shutdown/reboot should be possible without entering root password. > Above heuristic could be default, with additional setting available > to always/never require root password to shutdown. /etc/slim.conf offers a lot of flexibility if you are willing to edit some additional files, or to create a tool that does it for you. Your suggestions could be implemented easily. libre Grüße, Florian ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Open-RC on devuan - some questions
On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 1:12 PM, wrote: > Hi! > > On the road to a viable jwm desktop in devuan, i am using/trying > open-rc. In advance, my excuses if what follows is not sufficiently > technical. > > To the point: From Manjaro-OpenRC i knew openrc as a clean and logical > system to manage daemons & processes. By far, from a user point of > view, superior to sysvinit. Now, the transition from sysvinit to openrc > in devuan is mostly painless. BUT: I'm under the impression in > devuan/debian openrc works only as a kind of wrapper around sysvinit. > > An example: I installed a zram script (still when i had sysvinit as > init manager). Now, this script is configured to openrc in this way: > > "rc-update add zram boot" (which adds the zram daemon to the boot level > to have it ready early; could be added also to default). Now, when i > remove it by "rc-update del zram boot" it is not even more present for > openrc - but nevertheless, it is still started at any reboot. For me, > that means, openrc is *NOT* the real init manager - at least in its > debian implementation. > You got me interested and I just installed OpenRC on Devuan Jessie. I got the following message: ** *** WARNING: if you are replacing sysv-rc by OpenRC, then you must *** *** reboot immediately using the following command:*** for file in /etc/rc0.d/K*; do s=`basename $(readlink "$file")` ; /etc/init.d/$s stop; done *** once rebooted, you could safely backup and remove /etc/rc?.d *** ** Did you follow those instructions? I found that before I removed /etc/rc?.d, I was still running sysv init (but most/all services did not start -- ssh for example). After a subsequent reboot, I was running OpenRC. I'm still testing it, though... > > It would be nice to have openrc implemented as it is in gentoo or > manjaro: with the to essential directories: > > /etc/conf.d (where all the scripts for openrc are configured) > /etc/init.d (where the scripts that are configured in /etc/conf.d sit) > I see I have no /etc/conf.d. To me this means I really do not have OpenRC, as conf.d is one of the key benefits of OpenRC in my opinion. -Rob ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 07:43:51PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Brad Campbell (lists2...@fnarfbargle.com): > > > This is one I find interesting. I've never used an operating system > > where it was required to know root credentials to halt or reboot the > > machine from the login screen. > > Remember, Unix is a multiuser operating system, and also one supporting > both local and remote users, who would be annoyed by someone deciding to > cut them off. So it would be sensible to ask for root password IF there are other (remote) users logged in. If there is no one logged in, shutdown/reboot should be possible without entering root password. Above heuristic could be default, with additional setting available to always/never require root password to shutdown. -- Tomasz Torcz Morality must always be based on practicality. xmpp: zdzich...@chrome.pl-- Baron Vladimir Harkonnen ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 03:03:35PM +0100, Simon Hobson wrote: > Didier Kryn wrote: > > >I guess this is exactly what "multi-seat" means: severall keyboards and > > severall grapical cards connected to the same host. It certainly does not > > include serial terminals. Serial terminal fall in the category > > "multi-user", like ssh connections, not "multi-seat". > > > I disagree there. In the context of "graphical consoles" being > discussed I see where you are coming from, but serial terminals are > just a sub class of multi-seat - while the "multiple graphics > card-keyboard-mouse" setup is another sub-set. The key difference is > that there is a long history of multi-seat via serial (and more > recently, network) terminals and (for example) the serial etc systems > inherently support multi-seat. Indeed, this is how I first used Unix -- multiple serial-interface typewriter terminals connected to one PDP-11. Later we got a few text-only CRTs. -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Didier Kryn wrote: >I guess this is exactly what "multi-seat" means: severall keyboards and > severall grapical cards connected to the same host. It certainly does not > include serial terminals. Serial terminal fall in the category "multi-user", > like ssh connections, not "multi-seat". I disagree there. In the context of "graphical consoles" being discussed I see where you are coming from, but serial terminals are just a sub class of multi-seat - while the "multiple graphics card-keyboard-mouse" setup is another sub-set. The key difference is that there is a long history of multi-seat via serial (and more recently, network) terminals and (for example) the serial etc systems inherently support multi-seat. The way the problem is solved for serial terminals is simple - abstract the hardware into a stable device API, and run multiple instances of the "login" program (one per seat). "In theory" the same should be possible with the graphics-keybourd-mouse combo - EXCEPT that (AIUI) the software components involved were mostly written a) without that standard abstraction and b) without regard to the possibility of multiple instantiations. Just think how easy it musty have seemed at one point to just "intertwine" the software and hardware such that a single instance of "something" acted as the sole gatekeeper between the serial line and the machine - for a single seat. There'd then be discussions on how to work around that to enable multi-seat. As it happens, the serial line one was such a "no brainer" given how many different things used the serial lines - the solution we have must have seemed so obvious from the very beginning. Rob Owens wrote: > I can say with authority that multiseat doesn't have any value *for me*. ... > But I have no idea what the situation is like for people in other parts of > the world, or for people in my part of the world with fewer financial > resources. And that, IMO is a key point. Accepting that different users have different needs - and what we perceive as "of no value" may be the primary use case for others. Unfortunately, too many people, especially those pushing some key software components seem to have lost sight of this and simply declare anything they aren't interested in as "of no value" - or worse, as "wrong". We all, myself included, need to remember that our use case is just that "OUR" use case. It's easy to dismiss opposing viewpoints as having no merit if they don't fit in with our needs/perceptions. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
> > I can say with authority that multiseat doesn't have any value *for > me*. I looked into it a long time ago and decided that LTSP was > more straightforward. These days, prices of hardware have come down > enough that other people replace their computers after only a few > years and I get their hand-me-downs. This has made even LTSP not > worth my while. But I have no idea what the situation is like for > people in other parts of the world, or for people in my part of the > world with fewer financial resources. > LTSP provides more then just financial benefits. I maintain 3 sites using it for computer hubs that provide basic internet access and computer skills training. The benefits of that centralisation both of the applications platform as well and user storage is easiest this way. It' performs great and is easy to maintain. Adding another terminal or 2 is dead easy (plug it in and set it to PXE boot). -- Daniel Reurich Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd. 021 797 722 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
On 07/19/2016 07:30 AM, fsmithred wrote: > On 07/18/2016 04:36 PM, Rick Moen wrote: >> Quoting Hendrik Boom (hend...@topoi.pooq.com): >>> On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 08:54:44AM -0400, fsmithred wrote: >> Pretty cool trick. I tried it and got mixed results. I'm running without libsystemd0 here, so I can't have gvfs-daemons. That means there's no trash icon on the desktop and removable drives don't show up on the desktop when they're plugged it. With a dummy equivs libsystemd0, I get a trash icon that works, but the removable drives don't show up on the desktop. When I remove the dummy package and install the real libsystemd0, removables show up and mount/eject work as expected. >>> >>> So it does look as if libsystemd0 does do something. >> >> That doesn't logically follow. My guesstimate is that some GNOME >> plumbing is checking for some library function before it offers >> the user 'removable drives [...] on the desktop'. For libsystemd0 >> library functions to _do_ anything reportedly requires systemd be >> present to be reached below the library, i.e., the lib is just interface >> glue. >> >> If you really want to know for certain, read the calling and answering >> source code. (I won't bother, because I really have no interest at all >> in GNOME, and prefer to avoid it.) >> >> GNOME is a brittle dependency hairball. Surely that fact is clear, if >> nothing else is. >> > > Rick, I don't understand your reasoning here. What I see is that gvfs can > do something when the real libsystemd0 is installed that it can't do > without libsystemd0 - that is, it shows removable drives on the desktop. > The presence of systemd itself is not required for this - it's not installed. > > Gnome probably has nothing at all to do with this. The only gnome packages > installed here are gnome-accessibility-themes, gnome-icons, > libgnome-keyring and libsoup-gnome. I'm running xfce desktop. > > The next experiment I did was to chmod -R 000 /lib/systemd/. I'm running > this on a live-usb, so I can't reboot without losing changes. I tried > restarting udev and dbus one at a time, and additional usb drives still > show up on the desktop. Tried logging out of the desktop and back in, and > the drives still show up. Then I dropped to runlevel 1 and then went back > to 2 and got to the desktop. The removalble drives stopped showing up on > the desktop. I don't know what had to restart to make the permission > changes take effect. > > One odd thing: Fixed drives that are not in fstab show up on the desktop. > This was not affected by the change in permissions on /lib/systemd, but it > did depend on the presence of the real libsystemd0. Those drives don't > show up on the desktop with the dummy libsystemd0 package. > > I tried reading the source code for libsystemd0, but I don't read C, so I > got nothing out of it. > > -fsr > > One more test - instead of 'chmod -R 000 /lib/systemd' I tried 'chmod -x /lib/systemd/systemd-udevd' thus disabling an executable binary file that libsystemd0 provides. Dropped to runlevel 1, ctrl-d to return to desktop, and removable drives no longer appear on the desktop. -fsr ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 10:53 PM, Adam Borowski wrote: > Nowadays to find a regular person who doesn't own multiple computers, you > need to go to Africa or rural India. > > I'd say it's safe to assume that a person authorized to login on the > console > (either text or graphical) is supposed to be at least an operator, if not > the owner, of the machine. For weird setups like a kiosk you need to > configure access anyway. All that talk about multiseat being important > or even relevant today is IMO bullshit. > I can say with authority that multiseat doesn't have any value *for me*. I looked into it a long time ago and decided that LTSP was more straightforward. These days, prices of hardware have come down enough that other people replace their computers after only a few years and I get their hand-me-downs. This has made even LTSP not worth my while. But I have no idea what the situation is like for people in other parts of the world, or for people in my part of the world with fewer financial resources. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Inform DNG users their email has been moved.
On Tue, 7/19/16, Edward Bartolo wrote: Subject: Re: [DNG] Inform DNG users their email has been moved. To: "Simon Walter" , "dng" Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016, 1:31 AM > > You have been banned from my mail. > > Thanks for proving who you are and what your intention is. > That proves your "advice" is not reliable to be listened to. > > Adios, and go find some other victim to troll. > Edward, I doubt that anybody cares. You can ban me too. You are only a victim because you CHOOSE to be according to the novella that you are playing out in YOUR OWN MIND! It must be a living hell to go through life with those filters coloring the world around you. I have supported you over the years but am no longer going to be a co-dependent to your folly. I wish you peace and liberation from the prison you have created for yourself. Perhaps you can find some solace in your lovely garden or with your newest, bestest four-legged friend. When you figure things out, I will welcome you back to the real world with joy! golinux ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Le 19/07/2016 13:34, Adam Borowski a écrit : But why would anyone make a graphical console without a computer this millenium? Even if used just as a thin client, some extra logic to manage this would be nice. A computer costs a few cents these days, or, if you want a capable board and connectors, a few dollars. And even if you insist on connecting two physical GUI consoles, it'd be far more reasonable to given them separate logical machines by one of many ways to do so, than to create an additional layer in a single logical machine. I guess this is exactly what "multi-seat" means: severall keyboards and severall grapical cards connected to the same host. It certainly does not include serial terminals. Serial terminal fall in the category "multi-user", like ssh connections, not "multi-seat". I'm afraid XDMCP I mentionned in my previous email falls in yet another category. Didier ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Flexible software (Was: F1 and special usernames on the login screen)
Le 19/07/2016 10:17, Simon Walter a écrit : One can program a login manager that is only suited for single user machines. One can program a login manager that allows shutdown and restart without a password. I think that those already exist. I am not defending the choice of SLiM. What I am trying to express is that a narrow minded attitude towards use cases will make your software brittle. AFAIK Slim isn't offering remote X session through XDMCP; therefore the shutdown command, even implemented as a fake login can only be executed by a person in front of the computer, a person who could as well push the power button. Of course it would be different if there was a true "shutdown" user with the login command being "shutdown -h now". Didier ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 01:29:23AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote: > Latter page mentions 'Multiseat setups are great for schools, libraries, > and family computers.' Arguably true, _maybe_. Depends on the economics > of additional consoles versus extra complete computers, I guess. I > enjoyed using minicomputers during high school: A modern revival of that > computing model using Linux might make money sense or might not, depending. > Otherwise, I wouldn't say today that it'll necessarily be 'unimportant' in > years to come. But why would anyone make a graphical console without a computer this millenium? Even if used just as a thin client, some extra logic to manage this would be nice. A computer costs a few cents these days, or, if you want a capable board and connectors, a few dollars. And even if you insist on connecting two physical GUI consoles, it'd be far more reasonable to given them separate logical machines by one of many ways to do so, than to create an additional layer in a single logical machine. -- An imaginary friend squared is a real enemy. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
On 07/18/2016 04:36 PM, Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Hendrik Boom (hend...@topoi.pooq.com): >> On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 08:54:44AM -0400, fsmithred wrote: > >>> Pretty cool trick. I tried it and got mixed results. I'm running without >>> libsystemd0 here, so I can't have gvfs-daemons. That means there's no >>> trash icon on the desktop and removable drives don't show up on the >>> desktop when they're plugged it. >>> >>> With a dummy equivs libsystemd0, I get a trash icon that works, but the >>> removable drives don't show up on the desktop. When I remove the dummy >>> package and install the real libsystemd0, removables show up and >>> mount/eject work as expected. >> >> So it does look as if libsystemd0 does do something. > > That doesn't logically follow. My guesstimate is that some GNOME > plumbing is checking for some library function before it offers > the user 'removable drives [...] on the desktop'. For libsystemd0 > library functions to _do_ anything reportedly requires systemd be > present to be reached below the library, i.e., the lib is just interface > glue. > > If you really want to know for certain, read the calling and answering > source code. (I won't bother, because I really have no interest at all > in GNOME, and prefer to avoid it.) > > GNOME is a brittle dependency hairball. Surely that fact is clear, if > nothing else is. > Rick, I don't understand your reasoning here. What I see is that gvfs can do something when the real libsystemd0 is installed that it can't do without libsystemd0 - that is, it shows removable drives on the desktop. The presence of systemd itself is not required for this - it's not installed. Gnome probably has nothing at all to do with this. The only gnome packages installed here are gnome-accessibility-themes, gnome-icons, libgnome-keyring and libsoup-gnome. I'm running xfce desktop. The next experiment I did was to chmod -R 000 /lib/systemd/. I'm running this on a live-usb, so I can't reboot without losing changes. I tried restarting udev and dbus one at a time, and additional usb drives still show up on the desktop. Tried logging out of the desktop and back in, and the drives still show up. Then I dropped to runlevel 1 and then went back to 2 and got to the desktop. The removalble drives stopped showing up on the desktop. I don't know what had to restart to make the permission changes take effect. One odd thing: Fixed drives that are not in fstab show up on the desktop. This was not affected by the change in permissions on /lib/systemd, but it did depend on the presence of the real libsystemd0. Those drives don't show up on the desktop with the dummy libsystemd0 package. I tried reading the source code for libsystemd0, but I don't read C, so I got nothing out of it. -fsr ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
Rick Moen wrote: > Remember that bit I posted about how /usr/bin/ssh makes dynamic library > calls to sonames of two Kerberos libraries, even on the overwhelming > majority of systems that do not implement Kerberos? ... > 'Trust' in the sense you use the word just isn't in that. But it is. Have you actually checked any (or all) of the libraries to be sure ? I suspect not - because inherently you "trust" that these are projects from reasonable people following the "do one thing ..." philosophy. Additionally you trust that if they did try anything, you'd get to hear about it. I almost certainly apply more trust than you do in this wort of thing - because you clearly have more skills in the area of programming than I have and so I have to put some trust in others to "do the right thing" in terms of what makes it into a distro package. The point is, which you seem to keep missing, is that I do not have this level of trust in anyone pushing systemd. And given the amount of noise surrounding systemd, I additionally can't trust that if someone untoward did slip into libsystemd that I'd hear about it in all the noise. Plus, as someone else pointed out, to permit libsystemd0 (or equivs *IFF* it doesn't break packages - which it does with ClamAV) is tacitly accepting that these packages are OK to blindly depend on it. If the packagers can package that dependency and not get pushback from the users, then there's no incentive to consider if it might not be "right". But one thing that hasn't been answered by anyone, and I'm sure there must be a couple of people here with the level of knowledge to answer it ... How hard is it to replace a "call function_x_in_library_y" and die if library Y is missing, with something like "if_library_y_exists then call function_x" or "call function_x_in_library_y and handle failure gracefully if library Y isn't there" ? When I raised this with ClamAV, the answer was "it's just one call, if SystemD is installed we never call anything else" - which implies that the cost of making it a soft dependency can't be that high. Ie, if you only cal it once, then the cost of checking first is only one check during start up ! It comes back to - how much is it "programmers are lazy" vs how much is "well actually it is real work". ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
There are lots of unix boxes that serve many users. The mail server that sends this does, without requiring each email user to have a unix account. The only devuan server I have in production so far does, but the users are in a postgres database, not in /etc/password. There are also lots of unix boxes that have many UIDs. Don't android phones assign a uid to each app you install? The concept that's dying or dead is a login screen that asks "which of my many longtime users are you?" and then serve a UI. That used to be common, but nowadays corporate IT tends to give people laptops and each person has files on that laptop, so the laptop is more a singleuser device than a shared-among-whole-company thing. Even if a laptop is accessible to others in principle because of Active Directory or similar, the local files hollow out its multiseat capability. Kiosks remain, but many of those don't usually have longtime users, you get a freshly set up "guest" account when you start. I've also seen one that VNC'd me to my own virtualbox guest instead of using unix/x's multiseat. And of course sshd remains heavily used among many sysadmins, at least, but that too doesn't have a lot to do with login screens or multiseat. Arnt ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Quoting Simon Walter (si...@gikaku.com): > >I have to confess that I personally didn't understand how multiseat > >differs from multiuser on Linux until quite recently. Pro bono publico: > >It concerns simultaneous _local_ users. > > Does that include serial devices? Excellent question. I am going to chicken out and say, sadly, that I really don't know. My apologies, as I'd like to know, too. > My point was simply that if Devaun is to be useful to many people, > we shouldn't be closed minded about the use cases. FWIW, I certainly concur. (Good heavens, it's mid-morning, British Summer Time, isn't it? Here on the left coast of the Failed Colonies, I badly need to stop harvesting schadenfreude from Ohio political follies, and get to sleep.) ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
On 07/19/2016 05:29 PM, Rick Moen wrote: Quoting Arnt Gulbrandsen (a...@gulbrandsen.priv.no): Simon Walter writes: Oh the insolence. Amazing. "You're holding it wrong" comes to mind. There is this guy named Lennart who might agree with you. Quite likely he might, he's not stupid after all. And I agree too: Multiseat is unimportant, barely significant. The price of computers has dropped enough that the ones with UIs are now personal devices. Might be obvious, but just mentioning: 'Multiseat' (GNOME/system implementation of which proximately caused the systemd-logind omnishambles of several years ago) needs to be distinguished from multiuser. Unix has been inherently, by design, _multiuser_ since its beginning, and I for one would be quite sad if my Linux servers were suddenly 'personal devices': E.g., a Web / SMTPd / ftpd / sshd / rsyncd / NTPd server like the one in my garage suddenly failing to serve remote users would be a misfortune. I have to confess that I personally didn't understand how multiseat differs from multiuser on Linux until quite recently. Pro bono publico: It concerns simultaneous _local_ users. Does that include serial devices? I remember working at a factory where the computer controlled saws, conveyor belts, and other machines in each production line would communicate via serial interfaces with a server. IIRC, they were using SunOS. Of course a very unique use case that has nothing to do with normal "users" and "desktops". My point was simply that if Devaun is to be useful to many people, we shouldn't be closed minded about the use cases. I am not arguing that we strive to include multiseat functionality or any specific login manager or text editor or whatnot. Simply that we should not exclude anything that is easily included just because we don't see a use case for it. I am preaching to choir - I am pretty sure. Simon ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
Quoting Simon Hobson (li...@thehobsons.co.uk): > Rick Moen wrote: > > > That doesn't logically follow. My guesstimate is that some GNOME > > plumbing is checking for some library function before it offers > > the user 'removable drives [...] on the desktop'. For libsystemd0 > > library functions to _do_ anything reportedly requires systemd be > > present to be reached below the library, i.e., the lib is just interface > > glue. > > That is another possibility. All my reading suggests it's exactly the situation. Mind you, I haven't looked into the matter deeply, as my attention has been needed on countless other things. > However, for that to be the case then they must be doing the "check if > X exists before calling X" technique that I believe must be possible > (simply because so many pieces of software have soft dependencies on > optional modules). > > So if they are doing that with something in systemd itself, there is > no reason not to do it with libsystemd0. Programmers are lazy. ;-> > But either way, even if libsystemd itself doesn't do (present tense) anything, I have high confidence I'd have heard, were that the case. > ...I have zero trust that it will remain that way. I have high confidence I would hear, were that newly the case. And then I'd remove the thing and substitute an equivs entry, about five minutes after I heard. Remember that bit I posted about how /usr/bin/ssh makes dynamic library calls to sonames of two Kerberos libraries, even on the overwhelming majority of systems that do not implement Kerberos? That was one nearby example from my own system, from among _countless others_ I could have pointed to. It's not a dire conspiracy; it's just regular, somewhat overly inclusive default practices common among distro packagers. I'm not going to become actively paranoid about libgssapi_krb5.so.2 and libkrb5.so.3 packagers, nor about upstream Kerberos5 coders, just because either could 'shift some code into libkrb5.so.3'. Note that, even _if_ I thought upstream Kerberos5 coders were engaged in a sinister conspiracy to take over all Linux distributions and jeopardise our precious bodily fluids, I would not easily distrust _both_ upstream Kerberos5 coders and distro Kerberos library (package) maintainers who are, after all, gatekeepers. Maybe you have time for that degree of highly selective paranoia, but I don't. I have to deal with real threats. But in the bizarre and (I thin) unlikely event of that being noneteless the case, I'm confident I'd hear about it promptly, and I'd fix it promptly. ('This is Unix. Stop acting so helpless.' -- D.J. Bernstein.) 'Trust' in the sense you use the word just isn't in that. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Quoting Arnt Gulbrandsen (a...@gulbrandsen.priv.no): > Simon Walter writes: > >> Oh the insolence. Amazing. "You're holding it wrong" comes to >> mind. There is this guy named Lennart who might agree with you. > > Quite likely he might, he's not stupid after all. And I agree too: > Multiseat is unimportant, barely significant. The price of computers > has dropped enough that the ones with UIs are now personal devices. Might be obvious, but just mentioning: 'Multiseat' (GNOME/system implementation of which proximately caused the systemd-logind omnishambles of several years ago) needs to be distinguished from multiuser. Unix has been inherently, by design, _multiuser_ since its beginning, and I for one would be quite sad if my Linux servers were suddenly 'personal devices': E.g., a Web / SMTPd / ftpd / sshd / rsyncd / NTPd server like the one in my garage suddenly failing to serve remote users would be a misfortune. I have to confess that I personally didn't understand how multiseat differs from multiuser on Linux until quite recently. Pro bono publico: It concerns simultaneous _local_ users. The Linux kernel[1] can, unaided, make _only one_ (local) virtual terminal active at a time. Sure, you can (e.g.) have one X11 server attached to /dev/tty7 and another to /dev/tty8, but it turns out that any time one's active, the other can't be -- even if two physical sets of console hardware are attached. So, multiseat is, in short, a system software elaboration to fix that. This missing kernel functionality isn't important to either you, Simon Walter, or me, but it's a genuine limitation nonetheless, and there's nothing wrong _per se_ with offering ways around that limitation. Note that systemd-consoled is not the only candidate: kmscon preceded it, albeit development is currently stalled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kmscon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiseat_configuration#GNU.2FLinux also mentions several other current implementations. So, multiseat is _not_ a systemd invention, nor a systemd monopoly. Latter page mentions 'Multiseat setups are great for schools, libraries, and family computers.' Arguably true, _maybe_. Depends on the economics of additional consoles versus extra complete computers, I guess. I enjoyed using minicomputers during high school: A modern revival of that computing model using Linux might make money sense or might not, depending. Otherwise, I wouldn't say today that it'll necessarily be 'unimportant' in years to come. [1] Some other *ixes such as SunOS and Irix allegedly (per Wikipedia) had multiseat capability since early days, though I have no further details. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Flexible software (Was: F1 and special usernames on the login screen)
On 07/19/2016 04:17 PM, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote: > Simon Walter writes: >> Oh the insolence. Amazing. "You're holding it wrong" comes to mind. >> There is this guy named Lennart who might agree with you. > > Quite likely he might, he's not stupid after all. And I agree too: > Multiseat is unimportant, barely significant. The price of computers has > dropped enough that the ones with UIs are now personal devices. The > architecture of backends has changed such that UIDs aren't used for > customer IDs. > > A few exceptions remain, increasingly rare. I'm sure there are people > who have used that blue icon near the top right corner of the android > lock screen. Disclaiemr: I don't mind being schooled and I hope I don't offend anyone. I can remember being told be many seasoned engineers and reading in several books: One should not assume how their software will be used. "Lehman states that the gap between a system and its operational domain is bridged by assumptions, explicit and implicit [Lehman 00]." "Usually these assumptions are not documented and often they are not validated by the people with the knowledge to verify their appropriateness. Additionally, the real-world domain and the software itself are always changing. While the initial assumption set was valid, individual assumptions will, as time goes on, become invalid with unpredictable results or, at best, lead to operation that is not totally satisfactory [Parnas 94]." http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a443152.pdf It should be obvious to the seasoned developer that s/he cannot know all the use cases. Therefore by limiting the purpose of their software (do one thing) and not making any assumptions about how it will be used (do that one thing well) s/he can make useful software. I am taking task with the comments about how mulitseat is not important because it displays a disregard for this wisdom. One can program a login manager that is only suited for single user machines. One can program a login manager that allows shutdown and restart without a password. I think that those already exist. I am not defending the choice of SLiM. What I am trying to express is that a narrow minded attitude towards use cases will make your software brittle. Since this is Devuan (something about veteran *unix* admins, and coming from Debian - the *universal* OS), I would not have expected Devuan's fans and users to be so close minded. I have seen so many use cases for software that I couldn't imagine had I not seen them first hand by working in various industries. It has humbled me. If individual users are Devuan's main focus, it will fail to attract a very important and often neglected segment of computer users - business and industry. Not selling out to business and industry is just as important. That will also make one's creations brittle. Kind regards, Simon ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Open-RC on devuan - some questions
Am Tue, 19 Jul 2016 02:43:59 + schrieb Steve Litt : Hi Steve! > The "wrapper around sysvinit" thing is a feature of OpenRC, not > Devuan/Debian's implementation thereof. A little more explanation... > > [ . . . ] Thanks for your patience! It's in some way a bit above my knowledge, but the essentials i think i got. My excuses in advance anyway ;) But let me say this: *FROM A USER POINT OF VIEW* OpenRC is easier, the config scripts in /etc/conf.d are way simpler than those of sysvinit. May be you remember, i also tried Void but, may be due to my linuxwise incompetence, i found it not so easy to configure and sometimes (for the wpasupplicant/dhcpcd thing) confusing. Anyway, from theory, a suckless init as pid1 + openrc might be a slick combo (?). As for the respawn problem: I'm not sure, but i think OpenRC gives the possibility to mark/flag/config certain daemons and/or processes to be respawned. That might be better than doing that by default ... (?) E.g., i would not like to have privoxy respawned automatically in case something with its configurations does not work. But anyway ... I saw you're hanging around from time to time in the manjaro-openrc group. I think you might ask to artoo, which seems to be a quite smart openrc wizzard. And btw, in manjaro-openrc the scripts are configured as /bin/bash (or sh? - for sure not as /bin/openrc; which is sometimes a problem when you use directly a gentoo script: you have to think of this changement). ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] F1 and special usernames on the login screen
Simon Walter writes: Oh the insolence. Amazing. "You're holding it wrong" comes to mind. There is this guy named Lennart who might agree with you. Quite likely he might, he's not stupid after all. And I agree too: Multiseat is unimportant, barely significant. The price of computers has dropped enough that the ones with UIs are now personal devices. The architecture of backends has changed such that UIDs aren't used for customer IDs. A few exceptions remain, increasingly rare. I'm sure there are people who have used that blue icon near the top right corner of the android lock screen. Arnt ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] with or without libsystemd0
Rick Moen wrote: >> So it does look as if libsystemd0 does do something. > > That doesn't logically follow. My guesstimate is that some GNOME > plumbing is checking for some library function before it offers > the user 'removable drives [...] on the desktop'. For libsystemd0 > library functions to _do_ anything reportedly requires systemd be > present to be reached below the library, i.e., the lib is just interface > glue. That is another possibility. However, for that to be the case then they must be doing the "check if X exists before calling X" technique that I believe must be possible (simply because so many pieces of software have soft dependencies on optional modules). So if they are doing that with something in systemd itself, there is no reason not to do it with libsystemd0. But either way, even if libsystemd itself doesn't do (present tense) anything, I have zero trust that it will remain that way. Supposing ${desktop_environment} could really use a function for something (perhaps tied into Udev) - what's to stop the systemd guys "being helpful" and shifting some code into libsystemd ? Not a lot really - udev on one side, desktop environemnt on the other, and some "helpful" routines in between. Breaks all the "standard practice" of only having glue in the library, rides roughshod over admin preferences, so we trust the systemd guys to never do it - right ? Edward Bartolo wrote: > Libsystemd0 can be shrunk in cases only a few exported functions are > needed. That is exactly what I did when systemd became mandatory in > Debian around two years ago. I used tools like ld, nm and grep to > find which functions where used from libsystemd0. (See my howto on > forums.debian.net). Knowing the names of the functions I copied them > into a source file, obviously, wrote the exports statement and > compiled the resulting source file. Then, I used a symbolic link > pointing to tiny libsystemd0. > > Now, someone may point fingers to denigrate what I wrote because it > may not look professional to their tastes. Not at all. It's one way round the "problem", and neatly gets round the potential for libsystemd being silently expanded into more than just glue. However, it's another form of sticky tape to hold things together rather than fixing the problem at source. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng