Disabled root - by default; up2date more annoying

[Oliver John Tibi]

It would be very nice to disable the root user for login. 

Although creating the icon to flash periodically when updates are available
(similar to RHN's up2date client), it would also be notable for up2date to
update the system on 'silent mode' (daemon mode, if you want); the up2date
client may not show a notification icon when updates are available. This
option can be configured using an applet for the 'first user' (or the
sudo'ed user). Silent updates work perfectly under idle bandwidth, so active
updates should not be a problem.

O.J.

-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-devel-list-admin at redhat.com
[mailto:fedora-devel-list-admin at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Colin Charles
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 10:01 AM
To: fedora-devel-list at redhat.com
Subject: Disabled root - by default; up2date more annoying

Hi all, some thoughts on end-user improvements follow.

As the Linux uptake becomes greater, and Fedora becomes way more popular,
and the clueless getting by their daily work as root happens, its only a
little while before we have a major "Linux mydoom" styled virus attack
(which will give us bad media coverage!).

A while back on irc, mharris was also mentioning that folks might not
upgrade their software; so even if up2date blinks nastily, nothings going to
happen (from a user perspective). 

So, my proposals:

1. Follow the Mac OS X style of disabling a root login by default.
Enable sudo, and the first account that gets created thru the firstboot,
gets sudo privileges. Thoughts?

2. up2date blinks a little red icon at the bottom of the screen provided you
have a Net connection. *If* a user scrolls across it, it says "30 updates
available" for example.

How does the typical end-user know what to do? During the user's entire
usage of Fedora, (s)he will be having the little blinking red icon! My
proposal is to make a pop-up, literally telling you "up2date has found 30
packages".

And give a selection list (like what up2date currently provides), and then
let the user choose. This can happen once a week once (or at some other time
interval), and this ensures that the system is always generally, updated.

This may seem like a noisy approach, but if we're targetting the desktop
end-user, its probably worthwhile. (Again, stolen from Mac OS X).

Thoughts, comments?
--
Colin Charles, byte at aeon.com.my
http://www.bytebot.net/
http://fedoranews.org/colin/fnu/ - Fedora News Updates



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