Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 23:53:19 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: freebsd.org@carmoda.com Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Problems with ordinary user permissions Message-ID: <3F94D7DF.632EEE65@mindspring.com> References: <20031019172258.57908.qmail@web14602.mail.yahoo.com> <3F93EBEA.9070900@carmoda.com>
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carmoda wrote: > ~sigh~ > > seems like an awful lot of stuffing around for something that a > user/developer should be able to access by default *in my opinion*. so > far i have about 30% of functionality of my previous W2K system after > several times the time required for setup. [as a workstation] > > FreeBSD may be 'free' and more stable, but after i add my time to a > setup it is over twice the price of XP Pro. You charge too much. 8-) 8-). > Something HAS to be done on the install front. I did select 'developer + > X-windows' in the sysinstall and i think it would make more sense if the > account security was more 'open' for the average user given they would > be 'developing' on the platform. i mean, half of my apps didnt work due > to permissions being short. again, i did select that i wanted a > 'developer - x-windows' install. Windows defaults to "everyone on the Internet can write my disk"; FreeBSD defaults to "only root can write my disk"; OpenBSD defaults to "only God can write my disk, and even he needs a 1024 bit key". It's all a matter of trading security vs. ease of use. For the most part, you should install all software as root, and then expect that the software can be configured to "do the right thing" as part of the install. In general, I would say that most of your problems arise from the UNIX security model, and the failure of the software vendors or ports maintainers or both to anticipate you using your machine as if it's a signle use box. FWIW, if you are going to use the machine as a single user box, you probably want to create your user as uid 0:0, even if the name is not actually "root", and then auto-login the user without a password into something like a KDE environment. Then the console user owns all the hardware, and there's no issues for single user use that need you to go to root to resolve. -- Terry
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