2012/2/8 Diego Bello <[email protected]>: > On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Wolfgang Bornath > <[email protected]> wrote: >> 2012/2/8 Anne Wilson <[email protected]>: >>> On Wednesday 08 February 2012 15:13:57 Anne Wilson wrote: >>>> Yes, I have seen postings like "why do I have to use passwords" and >>>> "why can I not log in KDE as root" more than once. Are these people >>>> our target group? If so than - have fun! What strikes me is that you >>>> of all people are advocating a loosening of security with no real >>>> reason. >>> >>> I do not want to have to give the root password to members of my family that >>> are, frankly, clueless on tech-matters. At the same time, I do want them to >>> apply at least security updates. Being able to accept updates from a >>> trusted >>> source (direct from Mageia) with only their user password is the safest >>> their >>> systems can have. >> >> I understand the reasons. But you know as well as everybody else that >> sometimes updates do not work as easy as they should. It could be >> caused by a faulty mirror or by a glitch in a package (which should >> not happen but "should not happen" implies "can happen") or whatever >> other reason. Then your family members will wait for you anyway (in >> the best case) without knowing what happened - while they could have >> been happily working or entertaining themselves until you come and do >> the updates. >> >> Apart from the understandable quest to make it easy on the unwashed >> masses - it is still a security break - see what I have written about >> the ability of xguest to do updates (while xguest was invented to >> leave the system without garbage or damage at the end of his/her >> session). >> >> -- >> wobo > > A bad update will break your system no matter if you are root or not.
That's actually a point in favor of the need for the root password - if the system breaks: the user can not do anything at all - instead he will have to go for a walk until root comes to fix the problem. So why do you insist on letting poor user take that risk by default? -- wobo
