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Re: [Usability] User Shut Down damaged PC

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.

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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