Re: File manager tree.

["James M. Cape" <jcape jcinteractive com>]

bob@kehs.ksd.org wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 31 May 1999, Guillermo S. Romero / unnamed / Familia Romero wrote:
> 
> > >a) TURN THAT DAMN 'RUNNING AS ROOT' ERROR MESSAGE OFF
> >
> > Every time somebody says that, the coders should add another window. "Do no
> > run as root" -click- "I told you do not run as root" -click- "Yeah, again,
> > do not run as root" -click-.
> >
> > Please, no more "remove the root warning". Read books or e-docs about why
> > you use root to setup the machine, but not as normal user. Or try the
> > special manual for this case: "rm -rf /*". It is a very interesting manual,
> > you learn... very fast. And you never forget. ;]
> 
> You NEED to be root for some things... Creating accounts comes to mind. If
> you are smart, you wont "rm -rf /*". "adduser bob" and "rm -rf /*" arnt
> verry close. Pull the message out of gmc and put it into its own program.
> Then for the people who know what they are doing can remove the message by
> removing it out of the session. The people who know what they are doing
> dont see an anoying message, and the people who dont, get a nice warning
> message. If a user knows enough to pull the message out of the session,
> then they know enough not to mess up.

I consider myself to be a reasonably well-off Linux user. I
admin the local network I have here in my house, have set up
IP masqing/firewalling for both Windows and Linux, and
generally know what I'm doing. While attempting to clear out
the leftovers of a incomplete Gnome build (shell scripts and
clock skews don't mix), I accidentally deleted
/usr/lib/*lib* instead of /usr/lib/*glib* (as I intended).

Warn people if they are root. If possible, provide a
constant status reminder that "Yes, Virginia, you really are
root" -- similar in concept to the Netscape "Yes, you are at
a secure site" indicators. Draw a red box around the actual
file list or something similar.

And to top it all off, the idea of a "Root button" on the
Gmc toolbar. Clicking it prompts for the root password, and
then runs all commands entered while the root button remains
clicked as root (moves, copies, deletes, etc.). This is
possible, and even benificial. This way, the entire program
does not need to be run as root, but an ordinary user login
can access root permissions with the right password.

    Jim Cape
    http://www.jcinteractive.com

    "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of
them
     pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had
happened."
        -- Winston Churchill