Alan Cox Calls Fedora 18 "The Worst Red Hat Distro"

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Originally Posted by finalzone

I took the time to reproduce the issue by installating both Fluxbox and Sugar and restarting the system. On gdm login screen, the session is available containing Fluxbox and Sugar.
I do not know how you cannot access to Fluxbox while I successful got there without a fuss.

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You missed what I said. It did appear, but it needed a reboot first. Anyway, I would much rather just be able to have logged out.

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Originally Posted by lsatenstein

Sudo is another open door. Every distribution I have used allows sudo su

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Ubuntu allows (full) sudo rights to the user who installed the OS (who can be considered a sysadmin by definition in most cases), but by default does not allow it for additional users (unless you explicitly make them admins too).

There usually is no point in disallowing the (main) sysadmin access to a root terminal (although obviously in most cases 'sudo -i' is a better way to get that than 'sudo su').

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Originally Posted by LinuxID10T

You missed what I said. It did appear, but it needed a reboot first. Anyway, I would much rather just be able to have logged out.

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Feel free to write a patch or send a suggestion through bug report to improve that functionality.

@finalzone:
Even if only 0.1% or less of "normal" users use this regularly (which they do), it is important that they can keep using it without any trouble. It is a supported feature (as the developers publicly explains how to re-enable it), and there is no way it will confuse users who don't need it (AFAICT), so it makes no sense at all to hide it.

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Originally Posted by V!NCENT

I remember sudo being 'invented' for people who have difficulty remembering that they are going to do something as root.

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That is not why sudo was invented; it was "invented" to allow certain users to run certain applications (with certain options) as root (or as a certain user) without (necessarily) needing the root password (or the password of that certain user).

Additionally, it also logs every invocation.

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Originally Posted by JanC

That is not why sudo was invented; it was "invented" to allow certain users to run certain applications (with certain options) as root (or as a certain user) without (necessarily) needing the root password (or the password of that certain user).

Additionally, it also logs every invocation.

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Not quite. It was written because gnu su will never limit users from root access because someone decided RMS didn't need root access at MIT (he probably didn't) and it scarred him for life.

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Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)

However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he or she can tell the rest. The “wheel group” feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.

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Originally Posted by AdamW

Leslie, please don't recommend people log in graphically as root. It is highly insecure and not to be advised in any case for any reason. Fedora is not designed to encourage this.

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Please enumerate how logging in as root in GUI mode is more dangerous than using command line when.
a) Yum is not executed, nor any internet access
b) Gui mode is used to allow me to manage files and directories without the problems arising from a keying in error.
c) Want a list of key-in errors, just look at typos, look at rm *~ vs rm * ~
d) moving files from ../.././abc.c /opt/country/province/state/client/src and doing a mark and paste

So, please tell me what I am overlooking to make logging in as root more dangerous.
For years I have modifed pam.d files to allow root to logon in aui environment. So far, no past history of attacks as external web access is not used, and I am confident that no gui file or bash, bashrc etc has been modified.

I use common sense. Does that not exist any more.

I await your one example that will change my work habits.

I am not stubborn to reject changing my ways of doing things. I just would like one justification.

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Originally Posted by lsatenstein

b) Gui mode is used to allow me to manage files and directories without the problems arising from a keying in error.

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gksudo nautilus

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Originally Posted by uid313

gksudo nautilus

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Indeed. In KDE, you simply have to enter "dolphin" or "superuser" and it even gives a graphical icon that opens it with root permissions. Or K -> System -> File manager -> File manager - superuser mode. It's much, much simpler, faster and easier than logging in as root.

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Originally Posted by AdamW

It does always amaze me how people are happy to download an entire *computer operating system* and throw it at their computer - with valuable data on it! - without even reading the damn documentation.

For Pete's sake people, it's an operating system, not a new version of Angry Birds. You might want to read something about it before hitting the big red button. The F18 release documentation is pretty clear on the fact that the new installer UI is a first cut and still has rough edges:

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Then don't release it!!! How difficult is that?!? "Spherical Cow?!?" LOL! I agree with the other poster: what is wrong with you guys?!?

Post #8 hit the nail on the head. The neglect of Quality Control is one of the negative aspects in the Linux world. Everyone tells someone else to file bugs but people don't or when they do, they are ignored or the process is just sadly slow or unorganized. This is just one of the drawbacks of the free system but perhaps, they need to address the problem instead of releasing all these new projects at such a pace?