Auto-login default for Personal/Workstation (Re: FC2 test1: install glitches and comments)

[Ricky Ng-Adam]

Hello Rick!

Rick Johnson wrote:
>>> This can be done via the menu when configuring the login screen. 
>>> Putting it less in the open discourages this overall bad practice.
 >>
>> Yes... Bad practice on the server I understand, but on my own, 
>> personal, single user laptop? What is the reasoning?  Well, sure this 
>> is not Lindows or MDK, but no reason to be as friendly as possible 
>> with user's who have this on their laptop or desktop.
>  
> Perhaps, but I'd hate to lose my laptop and give the next guy one less 
> step to get my data. The 5-10 second inconvenience is worth that small 
> piece of mind - granted anyone with skills can easily circumvent that 
> anyway.

Well, I guess you already know what I'll say to that but here goes...

Few users have such important data that it would figure higher then the 
loss of their laptop. If it gets stolen the happy 'recipient' will 
probably reformat it with Windows before bothering to check out your 
Mozilla cookies... When the data is REALLY important (CIA? NSA? FBI?), 
you're screwed anyway (as you've said).

So I'd say: let advanced users configure the login password (so the 
inverse of what you told me at the beginning) and have the 90% of users 
who don't want to bother with an username/password auto-login. It 
definitely makes the boot process seem faster since you don't have to

-wait for kernel and service login
-login
-wait for KDE/GNOME to startup

You can take a toilet break and come back and yeah! you're at the desktop.

Now, as for the importance of data in some cases... The user would be 
better served in having the possibility of using an encrypted home file 
system -  THEN it would make sense and be profitable to ask for a 
login/user password to access it. That would be a feature that I'd be 
GRATEFUL to have by the way.

Thanks,

Ricky