Re: [Nautilus-list] Idea for Nautilus and GMC.

[Ralf Corsepius <corsepiu faw uni-ulm de>]

Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> Currently when people download executables from the network, say for
> installing software, they can not execute them because the execute bit
> is not set.
>
> So typical installation instructions for a Unix application look like
> this:
>
>         1. Click on this link to download.
>         2. Run a shell
>         3. type chmod +x file
>         4. Run
>
> Ideally, we want to avoid this problem in GNOME, and we just want
> executables to just work.  As they do in Windows.
Do we? Really?

> So I would like to suggest that we set this bit manually if the user
> double clicks on a file that happens to have an a.out or ELF
> signature.
This is not sufficient. You would have to check for more - Target
architecture, required libraries, library versions, other
dependencies.

FWIW: This is a problem under Windows: Win actually tries to execute
executables for foreign architectures (if certain criteria match)
and then either instantly stops, hangs uninterruptable, gracefully
produces an error message or similar (depending on its version and
type of foreign binary).

>  Maybe we could popup a warning or something, but the
> result should be that files downloaded in this way would just work.
A warning is not enough, otherwise you would be opening GNOME for
viruses. 

And to learn lesson from other folks: Such kind of feature should be
optional, be disabled by default and be handled very restrictively.

> Comments?
I don't see anything new what could not have already been handled by
standard mime-types etc.

Ralf