Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (5100 mails)

[Doug McGarrett <dmcgarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I did not really want to take this into the general discussion, but I suppose 
I am forced into it.  I replied to Pat Shanahan off-list, but it seems that 
it will persist.

I told him, as I will tell all of you now, that I doubt if anyone will read 
the 2 books provided with the distro from page 1 to the end.  And most of the 
questions I have are not addressed in the the indices.  For example, I
asked on the list the other day about sudo and sux.  Not in the indices.
I asked about writing to floppies.  Not in the indices.  I asked about
subfs.  No such information referenced.  I have at least 3 times as many 
books on Linux and Unix as I ever had on other systems--CPM. DOS,
Windows.  I have read portions of all of them, and I have used the index
pages of all of them, and sometimes I even find what I'm looking for.
I am aware that I can log on as root and do almost anything.  What I am
not aware of, is how to make the system user friendly to a USER, so he can
copy files to floppies, or whatever, without becoming root--which, in a
corporate atmosphere, he would not be allowed to do.  I'm afraid I do not 
understand the logic.

BTW, it has been my experience with 9.1, which I'm using, is that the
auto-mount feature works, but the auto-unmount feature does not.  I always
have to become root and umount and eject to get anything out of the DVD 
drive.  So much for subfs, whatever it may be.  (Tell me what page, please.)

--doug


On Monday 07 June 2004 23:35, BandiPat wrote:
> Doug remarked:
> I wasn't asking permission, I was asking what the devil this is (subfs),
> and why we should have it at all?
>
> /rant on
>
> It also seems to me, that if Linux is to become a desktop system, it has
> to become more user-friendly, not less.  If it is only going to be used
> in the corporate workplace, then probably a lot of these protective
> devices need to be in place, but if I'm going to use it in my
> home--without any kids, even--then there should be a simple way to turn
> most of these protections off.  There does not seem to be any real need
> to prevent the user from writing to most of the media, except the root
> files.  There might be a simple setup to allow a few users (mom, Pop,
> and the kids) separate permissions, but the idea of preventing anyone
> from doing anything ever is ridiculous.
>
> And, even someone in an office might like to copy something to a floppy
> or a CD for safe keeping.  Yeah, maybe Linux doesn't crash, but systems
> do.
>
> rant off/
>
> --doug
> ===============
>
> Doug,
>
> You obviously haven't seen 9.1 yet or you would have a better
> understanding of the subfs system.  As Patrick pointed out, it is
> indeed something to add user friendliness to the Linux desktop.  It is
> something that is needed to draw other OS users to Linux on the
> desktop.  How many times have you tried explaining to someone why you
> have to "mount" or "unmount" removable drives in Linux?  They begin to
> think you are talking about your computer in sexual terms after a
> bit!  ;o)
>
> That is the reason for subfs system, to eliminate that.  I think this
> relates to the "supermount" project, which kinda died and is now the
> "submount" thing in SuSE.  You no longer have to mount or unmount, it's
> done automatically with this.  Just put a disc/disk in, it reads it,
> opens it and when done, hit the eject button on the drive!  I too agree
> with Patrick, in that a bit of reading before ranting might have helped
> to prevent the rant.  ;o)
>
> As always, Linux is about choice and you can revert your setup back to
> the old way, if you so desire.  So far, I haven't seen any reason to do
> that as this is quite convenient and I'm already spoiled.
>
> Regards,
> Lee
>
> --
>  --- KMail v1.6.2 --- SuSE Linux Pro v9.1 ---
> 	Registered Linux User #225206
>  On any other day, that might seem strange...