enter password for default keyring to unlock

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Mon, 2008-07-14 at 13:58 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Anne Wilson wrote:
> 
> >> > Install keyring manager and then you can remove/add keyrings and such.
> >> > Just play with it a little and you'll get the hang of it.
> >>
> >> I was just looking at this again.
> >>
> >> Is there in fact a keyring manager that runs under KDE?
> >> Or does one have to install the gnome-keyring-manager package?
> > 
> > I haven't been following the thread, but it sounds as though kwallet is
> > what you want.
> 
> Are keyring and kdewallet related?

One's Gnome and the other's KDE. AFAIK neither depends on the other and
they have similar funcionality. However Gnome apps (e.g. Evolution)
depend on keyring while KDE apps (e.g. Kmail) depend on kdewallet, so if
you have a mixture of apps you get to have both.

<irony>
Ah, the delights of choice ...
</irony>

> I've managed to give myself different kdewallet and keyring passwords.
> I wish I could get rid of them both.
> What exactly is their purpose?

Their purpose is to lock up all your other passwords that you use for
multiple functions, so you only need to remember one password instead of
15. This would be great except that a) you often need both of them, b)
not all apps, mainly older ones but also Firefox, actually use either of
them, and c) those that can use them don't always offer you the option
of not using them, e.g. the KDE apps seem fairly relaxed in that they
ask you if you want to store your password in kdewallet, while the Gnome
ones (I'm thinking of Evo here) take the line "we know best". Hope I'm
not stepping on any toes here.

Once again we see how what at root is a good idea actually leads to more
complexity because no-one thought of it early enough to make it
standard.

poc