Re: [Usability] User Shut Down damaged PC

[Ritesh Khadgaray <khadgaray gmail com>]

Heya,

  Sorry for late reply, been on the move .

On Fri, 2007-03-23 at 12:09 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Hi Kirk,
>    I think you have it just about right as far as I'm concerned.
> 
> a) I don't want to force anyone outside of my responsibility to have
> to do anything differently than they do today. I understand why the
> shut down command exists in the System menu and why many or even most
> people would want it there.
> 
> b) On the other hand I do not personally want Gnome developers
> granting my users any root responsibilities by default. I want to
> control that based on how we use our machines. Since 'shutdown -h now'
> is not a command these users can execute in a terminal I don't want
> Gnome going around my usage model and giving them permission to do so
> from in a Gnome session without my permission. (Since it breaks
> ongoing work on that machine.)
> 
> c) I'm fine with any reasonable method of allowing root to give this
> capability to any or all users. It could be anything from a field in
> gconfig (if that's what it's still called) to a specific group in
> /etc/group. Give me a group called shutdown and I'll add it to
> specific user accounts, etc.

I believe on Fedora halt and poweroff setting are controlled via pam ,
and thus can be disabled by modifying the pam config files.

> 
> d) On other lists I think there is some consensus that Linux menus in
> general are too hard to edit. After using Gnome for years I don't know
> how to add or remove applications or commands from the System menu. It
> doesn't seem to follow the documentation I've read. (But other than
> this issue I admit I haven't dug very deeply.) If I could edit the
> system menu and just delete this entry it wouldn't be an issue for my
> wife and son. They never go beyond the menus and very simple terminal
> commands. If they want desktop icons they come to me.
> 
> e) I have an inconsistency in my request because if my son wants to
> reboot into Windows and he has to exit to gdm to do so then he will
> and I still have a problem. For that reason it would be good if there
> was some understanding of the running un-interruptable system command
> or even that other users are logged on. (Windows clearly displays in
> its login screen and asks for extra confirmation if other users are
> still logged on.) I sometimes use other machines on my network and
> pipe X back to my screen. I know my family doesn't understand that a X
> app window on my screen is not necessarily an app running on my
> machine. However if I'm using my son's 32-bit machine to run some Java
> thing in a browser since my machine is 64-bit and Java doesn't run
> really well on 64-bit boxes then I don't want him taking the machine
> off line when I'm working.
> 
>    Anyway, I do appreciate your response and those from others. I hope
> we can eventually figure out a good overall suggestion as well as an
> appropriate way to pass it on to the developers.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark
> 
> On 3/22/07, Kirk Bridger <kbridger shaw ca> wrote:
> >
> >  Hi Mark,
> >
> >  Perhaps the problem is that the user environment offers all users the
> > ability to shutdown, whereas you would rather be able to offer them only
> > logout or switch user capabilities?  Perhaps suspend too?  The point being
> > that it is a user-specific setting/limitation.
> >
> >  Maybe the best option here would be to allow the system admin to control
> > which parts of the dialogue displayed to the user are actually available for
> > that user to interact with?
> >
> >  I don't like the idea of having to logout and then shutdown, as I'm the
> > only user on my system.  I think this would better be controlled on a
> > per-user level rather than globally.  The Users and Groups dialogue offers
> > the ability to control what a user can do with the system - maybe we should
> > ask to have the system controls added to this list explicitly?
> >
> >  I also think that a shutdown command should be aware of the fact that an
> > un-interruptable system operation is going on.  It should alert the user and
> > ask them to specify if the user wants to cancel their shutdown command or
> > simply shutdown when the un-interruptable operation is complete.
> >
> >  Sadly I don't know which parts of Gnome would need to change here, so I
> > can't make any recommendations as to where to file the bugs.
> >
> >  Kirk
> >
> >
> >  Mark Knecht wrote:
> >  Manu,
> >  Thanks for your response.
> >
> >  I agree that finding a way to warn a user that upgrades are in
> > progress would be a valuable addition. However keep in mind that
> > sometimes users can be quite young and may or may not pay attention to
> > these messages.
> >
> >  My son, now 14, has never had a Windows PC. He got his first Linux
> > box at age 7 and has been using Linux for about 7 years. I'm not sure
> > at the age of 7 that he would have understood the difference between
> > log out and shut down. I'm certain he wouldn't have understood the
> > real meaning up an 'updates in progress. Don't shut down!' message.
> >
> >  I suppose that what I'm asking for is what Gnome used to provide.
> > The addition of the Shut Down option in the menus is fairly recent.
> > Maybe a year ago it was added to the user environment. Prior to that
> > it only appeared in the gdm login screen. I'd like to see an option to
> > return to that model.
> >
> >  Personal observation: I personally cannot see why *anyone* needs a
> > shut down option within their desktop. Linux is not Windows. It is
> > fully multi-tasking and multi-user. At a minimum I'd prefer users have
> > to completely log out and then at a minimum *consciously* decide to
> > shut the machine down from gdm. I'd also like to see Gnome or gdm do,
> > at a minimum, what Windows does which is warn that other users are
> > logged on before the final shut down sequences can start.
> >
> >  Note that this isn't only a problem for little kids. My wife's
> > machines servers as a MythTV backend server. Periodically sh will make
> > a mistake when logging out and choose shut down. The machine shuts
> > down and we lose recordings. Granted, she should be able to read the
> > message saying that the machine will shut down in 60 seconds, but
> > sometimes she will do this trying to get out the door to work when
> > she's rushed and not paying as much attention.
> >
> >  As a small note toward usability both my wife and son have
> > rearranged their desktop to move what I think Gnome calls the 'panel'
> > to the top of the screen. For some reason they feel they are less
> > likely to choose the shut down option when their screens are arranged
> > this way. Personally I don't like that arrangement but to each his
> > own.
> >
> >  Anyway, we are all Gnome users and love the environment. It strikes
> > a nice balance between features & usability while keeping from
> > terribly overtaxing the system. I use Gnome with real-time kernels for
> > audio recording. 4 years ago I could never have done that and was
> > using minimalist environments like fluxbox. I like that I can now use
> > Gnome and not suffer in the least.
> >
> >  Lastly, I'm not looking for any immediate changes in Gnome. I just
> > thought I'd report this after maybe our 10th, and worst, run in with
> > the issue.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mark
> >
> > On 3/21/07, Manu Cornet <manu cornet gmail com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >  Hi Mark!
> >
> > Thank you for your feedback. I think the problem you raise is real,
> > however I believe the need to solve the "how to fix a broken system"
> > problem is not as urgent as the need to not break it in the first
> > place. The simplest way I see is to be able to warn the user against
> > shutting down/rebooting whenever a system upgrade is being performed.
> >
> > I'm not sure whether this needs to be distro specific or not (there
> > are many ways to upgrade a system in the various distros), but the
> > upgrade system should probably let gnome-session know about what it is
> > doing?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Manu
> >
> >
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> >
> >
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-- 
Ritesh Khadgaray
ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ
LinuX N Stuff
Ph: +919970164885
Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway.