Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 19:39:06 +0200 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: Mehmet Erol Sanliturk <m.e.sanliturk@gmail.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Permissions problem for sane Message-ID: <20150810193906.dfad0829.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <CAOgwaMuaYbLYMr96_Lwxis==PFbxhEsxdcXcyTuNEh7NR6ke2g@mail.gmail.com> References: <20150806104335.GA27748@ithaca.acampbell.uk> <1876444.Yqz8SnZpVd@desk8.phess.net> <alpine.BSF.2.20.1508061514330.24695@wonkity.com> <CAJ-Vmom%2BgG9b1imVzL9nx6HQmTSHr0n8WXg%2B7J7VksgAhHyO5g@mail.gmail.com> <CAOgwaMuaYbLYMr96_Lwxis==PFbxhEsxdcXcyTuNEh7NR6ke2g@mail.gmail.com>
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On Mon, 10 Aug 2015 01:11:27 -0700, Mehmet Erol Sanliturk wrote:
> When KDE or Gnome is running , or whatever reason some of their facilities
> are running during a GUI set up , permissions defined in OS level are
> prevented for ordinary "user" level .
In many cases those also require HAL and DBUS running.
HAL has been deprecated in Linux long time ago, and
is slowly fading out of the ported applications in
FreeBSD. I assume DBUS will join its fate. Both will
probably be replaced by Linux kernel mechanisms which
are not present on FreeBSD.
> When "user" needs to use some facilities , permitted for the "root" and
> "user" with respect to loader.conf , or rc.conf , or other *.conf files ,
> also it is necessary to define them in PolicyKit or other *Kit
> configuration files .
That's right. Even though HAL and DBUS claimed to be
"the tools" to enable those typical single-user settings,
they often are not. Device recognition, automount, device
access (permissions) and so on often don't work as expected
because one of the many moving parts isn't moving as intended.
> Mostly these files are implicitly "secret" because , there was a circular
> referencing for them :
> In Handbook , "see KDE/GNOME sites" , from KDE/GNOME sites "see your OS
> documentation"
> without any visible information about them .
That's what I often call "Linux documentation mentality".
I don't want to sound impolite, but due to the fact that
GNU/Linux is very diverse because of the many distributions
and their incompatibilities, documentation is scattered
across the web: project pages, distro pages, user pages,
wikis, discussion forums. "Just look there!"
Sometimes I tend to say that documentation in this case
is even useless: When the documentation is completed, it
doesn't match the software it documents anymore. And when
it has caught up to the latest version, the software is
obsoletet - and even better: replaced by something that
nobody wrote documentation about. "Leave it to the users.
They can figure out how it works, and write documentation
when they feel they need it." Or even worse: "This works
without configuration, so no documentation is needed.",
except it doesn't work, but who cares. :-/
This problem (or let's at least say: some issues) is often
found in regards of:
- wireless networking configuration
- system configuration in general
- scanners
- printers
- scanprinters
- scanfaxprintercatfooddispenser
- cameras (webcams)
- USB mobile Internet
- other consumer cheap-crap USB devices
On FreeBSD, many of those devices work if the configuration
has been adapted properly. But there are devices that do not
want to work...
> In Linux , OS and these parts are synchrony in distributions because *Kit
> part are completing missing parts of OS .
The distribution maintainers who create a specific Linux version
tend to make sure their parts integrate well. So it's not a big
deal to get something working when the preinstalled configuration
is being used. For example, a distro uses KDE - everything works.
Want to use Gnome or Xfce? Problems appear. This is because Linux
does not have a distinction between "the OS" and "everything else"
as FreeBSD has, where the OS is developed by the FreeBSD team, and
the ported applications are being maintained by different people.
> In FreeBSD , these *Kit's are only preventing facilities alrady present in
> OS .
Even though many Linux programs claim to be interoperable, they
are often only interoperable in the range of Linux, not "Linux
and UNIX and the like" (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris and
so on). Development becomes more and more Linux-centric, which
provides better software quality for Linux, but makes FreeBSD
users suffer.
The interoperability claim would suggest that a service that
on Linux uses Linux mechanisms, would use FreeBSD mechanisms
when run on FreeBSD. But it does not. It expects the Linux
mechanisms to be present on FreeBSD. Sure, the Linux ABI is
a great thing, but the FreeBSD kernel isn't the Linux kernel.
As soon as kernel facilities become involved, goals will get
harder to achieve. This is a massive problem with the huge
dependency pyramid ("bloat") of modern mainstream software.
> This situation is making FreeBSD very hard to use .
Depends. If you want to use Gnome or KDE, you have to "fight the OS".
You need to tear down intended (!) barriers manually. You need to
sacrifice a bit of security in order to gain comfortability. This
is not impossible, but it's _work_ that has to be done.
Those security barriers make perfectly sense on a server or a
workstation. Do you want to mount an USB stick r/w when inserted,
so anybody can start copying your files? Do you want a DVD to
autoplay when you insert it - because you want to copy some
files from it, _later_? Do you want r/w access to a hard disk
that you will be trying to do data recovery from? Do you want
your computer to automatically connect to a WLAN so it can
start sending unencrypted data? Or access to the the webcam
view? All those questions might be answered "Yes! Do it now!"
for a typical home PC where security doesn't matter. "I don't
have anything to hide."
However, you _can_ get things fully working, using _native_
FreeBSD means - but that often implies you cannot achieve the
same level of integration as you'll find on Linux.
It's important to summarize that FreeBSD and Linux are different
operating systems. That nothing in the comparison of "good vs. bad",
it is simply a difference worth acknowledging to prevent unrealistic
expectations. :-)
--
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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