Only an admin is allowed to install programs, and if the admin would be given a choice to include users to audio group during installation of a package (you can always answer no), than what is the problem? You'll have to do it anyway if you are intending to get realtime privilege (though many won't know they need to, and there's no telling when they realize the do). This audio group problem is one of those things that make it endlessly frustrating for people who only wish to install audio apps and start using them.

As for Ubuntu Studio itself, it is intended for audio production, (amongst other things), and for Ubuntu Studio it makes no sense at all to leave users without realtime privilege when creating new users.

It is of course different when installing packages, but this one problem could so easily be clarified to any user (they would at least become aware of it) if it would be included in the install process of jackd.

On 2012-01-22 12:46, Ralf Madorf wrote:
On Sun, 2012-01-22 at 03:58 +0100, Kaj Ailomaa wrote:
My point in bringing up this problem with audio group was that new users
(who wouldn't know about audio group) shouldn't have to create a new
user and find that the new user cannot use audio applications in realtime.
Having the option of administrating groups will of course always remain,
but from my point of view, a distro like UbuntuStudio should have audio
group as a default group for both the desktop and administrator users.
Not having that is in my view a bug.
As pointed out, the user who installs the system from DVD will belong to
audio group, but not in any other other case.

But, in case you don't install from DVD...
When installing ubuntustudio-packages separately from another Ubuntu
based distro you will not get user to belong to audio group, and there
is no direct explanation to why realtime won't work in this situation.
While it is possible to find this out, isn't it much preferable for the
user not having to know? [snip]

You can't handle permissions that slipshod if it's for a repository used
by several "Sub-"Ubuntus. Note that I installed Edubuntu and then added
the Ubuntu Studio repository. Now imagine that this Edubuntu is used by
very young children (btw. it isn't used by children on my machine). It's
better the admin needs to google for an issue such as a group audio,
than automatically add users to groups. If you want your children being
able to run http://www.tuxpaint.org, you might not want them to be able
to run your audio work to sync a raunchy video too ;). This of cause
isn't a good example, since we would disable permissions to open such a
project folder, because a group audio anyway wouldn't protect against
access.
As long as your Linux is for a single user only and it e.g. might only
be a DAW, perhaps without an Internet connection, you can set SUID for
all folders, you can run audio sessions as root etc., but as soon as
it's a multi-user machine, there's the need to have an admin with
knowledge.
Regarding to the group audio there might be no security issue, dunno, I
just want to warn that there might be a risk we all miss.

2 Cents,

Ralf




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