Comment by foxfluff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by foxfluff | Hacker News Reader

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> There's a bunch of influential people that are bent on making "Linux desktop" be something that competes effectively with Windows and MacOS.

And not necessarily with the interests of Windows or MacOS end users, but more corporate interests.

I think a lot of Windows users for example were and would still be fine with a system that is effectively a single-user desktop. A permission prompt to prevent random apps from spying on you using your microphone and camera is probably a Good Idea for the average user but all this user policy business is just pointless; users themselves should always have access to their own devices anyway, just as they would on old Windows installs where the user was typically the only user and always administrator.

And yeah, I don't like that a few people get to define what exactly constitutes a desktop for everyone. Especially if under the guise of "this is what a modern desktop requires" they're free to turn the platform into a bloated, overcomplicated mess.. exactly the kind of thing I was happy to get away from when I left proprietary operating systems behind two decades ago.

I don't understand what you mean by a few people get to define it. This stuff is used by basically every desktop environment on Linux. You have to either use it or write something very similar to it if you want to have permission prompts that actually work. They all give the option to turn it off but they still have to support it for the average user you described. Unsurprisingly, the requirements for shipping a desktop are really not that different on Linux compared to other operating systems. The users all want the same things.

From what I have seen, the amount of users that want to go back to the Windows 95 style of security are an even fewer people. You can find distros that still ship a desktop from that era but they don't seem to be for much beyond novelty.

> if you want to have permission prompts

Why would I want permission prompts? Most systems are single-user systems; if you're logged in, you're the administrator, even if you haven't yet invoked your superpowers. Arguambly you should have to confirm if you want to do something dodgy; but if all you have to do is say "Yes, thanks for the warning", then you don't need any kits.

Really, I have difficulty imagining this group of Linux users who are constantly hot-laptoping, so that they need multi-user support sprinkled all over the OS. I can see that it's useful in a pair-programming environment, where you might have a lab or workstations with a standard config; but apart from that, how often does someone else log in to a desktop/laptop computer you normally use? Or one you own?

I don't think hotdesking and hotplugging are urgent consumer requirements. I don't think the people producing this stuff are aiming it at consumers.

> or write something very similar to it

Or use what was written before, if it matches your use-case. That worked, for many people. Still does for some.

> The users all want the same things.

Please don't speak for everyone. It's exactly this patronizing we-know-better-than-you attitude that makes users hate their corporate software vendors.

> From what I have seen, the amount of users that want to go back to the Windows 95 style of security are an even fewer people.

I knew someone would immediately reply with this straw man as soon as they saw mention of old Windows. I said user policies are pointless for a single-user desktop. It's irrelevant whether dave and samantha can access the audio device in john's session because dave and samantha don't exist on john's personal computer and he sure ain't running an ssh daemon for them.

>Please don't speak for everyone. It's exactly this patronizing we-know-better-than-you attitude that makes users hate their corporate software vendors.

I'm not speaking of corporations here, this is basically every current desktop environment that is shipping on Linux right now. They are all either using polkit or they use something very similar to it because the idea of it (user asks to perform an action, show a prompt) is very straightforward and pretty much universal for GUIs by now. Some of them may be business-oriented but some aren't. If this doesn't fit the definition of "everyone" using desktop Linux then who else are you considering? And just to clarify, I would say using sudo with a fine-grained config is roughly equivalent to polkit, although less convenient for GUI users because it doesn't have pluggable authentication agents.

>I knew someone would immediately reply with this straw man as soon as they saw mention of old Windows. I said user policies are pointless for a single-user desktop.

This itself is a strawman though. Polkit and sudo and such are not strictly about user policies although you can use them for that.

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