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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: KDE-4.4.x only for distributors ?
From:       Jaroslav Reznik <jreznik () redhat ! com>
Date:       2010-03-16 15:21:46
Message-ID: 201003161621.47104.jreznik () redhat ! com
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On Monday 15 March 2010 06:25:52 Dr.-Ing. Edgar Alwers wrote:
> I would like to comment some points I have been facing during my efforts to
> build a KDE-4.4.0 system from the scratch. I am not a distributor. However,
> I have a lot of experience, building Linux systems from th scratch.
> 
> First of all, there is a lack of documentation. The BLFS Book is still
> handling KDE-3.5.10. KDE-4.4 is to be build with cmake, and very few hints
> abouth configuration are included in the packages. Downloadplaces have been
> inhomogen.
> 
> The safety policy of KDE-4.4 is in my opinion wrong and should be
> reconsidered. If I am running a single PC in my home, perhaps with an
> Internet connection, it should be _my_ decission, how many safety I want
> to have. It is a wrong policy not to allow me even to set a time and a
> timezone withouth spezial administrator permissions. The policy should be:
> the user has all administrator rights. These rights may be restricted step
> by step e.g. in bigger companies by an skilled administrator, but not from
> the very beginning for a simple home-PC user ! It should be a down-up
> approach.

It's top value added by PolicyKit - you can tune/you can override defaults and 
you can do it with better granularity. In the past, you had to give all 
permissions to users (root password, sudoers etc.), now you can just give 
users for example ability to change date if you wish (as administrator)!

I agree that for single user PC we don't need such strict policies but this 
should be up to administrator of such system. I still remember Fedora's 
Desktop spin feature - installing signed packages without password. It's OK 
for desktop single user system but I don't like it as default policy. And we 
had to change it.

> Just to illustrate what I am meaning: My banking programs do not work under
> kde-4.4 due to a wrong timezone.( they do under kde-3.5.10 ) I am working
> since weeks, triyng to set a timezone for my laptop. I am not allowed to do
> that. I started building PolicyKit, polkit, polkitQt, polkitQt-1. Very
> difficult already to find out, what the differences are, what do I need,
> are the packages compatible, etc. ( thanks to Dario Freddi ), where can I
> download the packages. After I managed this task, I rebuilt kdelibs and
> kdebase, just to find out, that kdm is now issuing a "critical error
> occurred", (EE) Failed to initialize GLX extension ( compatible nvidia x
> driver not found). This, althought I have a ThinkPad with intel drivers,
> nothing with nvidia.

It's not recommended to have both PolicyKits installed and as Polkit-1 is 
future - start with it.

> The point is: inspite of my experience building systems, I am running from
> one big problem in another one. And I am not alone ! And this is a new
> phenomena ! KDE-4.4.x is becomming a system for higly skilled specialists
> in distribution companies. Is this the intention of the developers ?
> 
> KDE-4.4 is a very nice system, with very nice features. The safety-policy
> _must_ be redisigned. The implementation of polkitQt-1 etc. is not yet
> working, as many contributions show. And last but not least, the
> documentation is far behind  the development, with the corresponding
> konsequences.

What's wrong with Polkit-qt-1? It's just wrapper on top of PolicyKit - we 
can't do anything more. I would change lot of things in PolicyKit I don't like 
- unfortunately it's not easy to talk with PolicyKit upstream/developers :( We 
are too much reactive, not as proactive as I'd like to see but it's not easy :
(

Jaroslav
 
> Please help ! And thank you very much for all the work done.
> Edgar
> 
> >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to
> >> unsubscribe <<

-- 
Jaroslav Řezník <jreznik@redhat.com>
Software Engineer - Base Operating Systems Brno

Office: +420 532 294 275
Mobile: +420 731 455 332
Red Hat, Inc.                               http://cz.redhat.com/
 
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