Why is spot not in /home?

Puppy related raves and general interest that doesn't fit anywhere else
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unicorn316386

#31 Post by unicorn316386 »

mikeb, what are you thoughts on this one?
About fido wrote:fido is another name for a dog, and is a full non-root login account, as you would get in any other Linux distro. With one peculiarity, it's home directory is /root (which may indeed seem very peculiar to you, but there is a reason for it!). As with other distros, you would use 'su' or 'sudo' to perform administrator activities.
:lol:

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mikeb
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#32 Post by mikeb »

Didn't see the reason for it there... If i remember fido was a brief encounter.

Mike

jamesbond
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#33 Post by jamesbond »

unicorn316386 wrote:mikeb, what are you thoughts on this one?
About fido wrote:fido is another name for a dog, and is a full non-root login account, as you would get in any other Linux distro. With one peculiarity, it's home directory is /root (which may indeed seem very peculiar to you, but there is a reason for it!). As with other distros, you would use 'su' or 'sudo' to perform administrator activities.
:lol:
Spot is debatable. Fido is not. It is totally indefensible. I will not speak further :D
Fatdog64 forum links: [url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117546]Latest version[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/ke8sn5H]Contributed packages[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/se8scrb]ISO builder[/url]

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Smithy
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#34 Post by Smithy »

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mikeb
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#35 Post by mikeb »

Ah missed reply and thanks for the image :)

As it happens a multiuser pup no longer needs exec xwin to avoid a shutdown loop. I assume its due to not dangling off /etc/profile

Perhaps user Rover or Butch might give all this running as non root a more macho appeal... but then what are we hiding from?

Mike

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Smithy
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#36 Post by Smithy »

mikeb wrote:Ah missed reply and thanks for the image :)

As it happens a multiuser pup no longer needs exec xwin to avoid a shutdown loop. I assume its due to not dangling off /etc/profile

Perhaps user Rover or Butch might give all this running as non root a more macho appeal... but then what are we hiding from?

Mike
Well in the above case, I think they were almost drawn into having an extra marital fling under sudo, but then they came to their senses and went back to root, which in the forties, was the done thing. woof woof.

Root is ideal for Puppy, because it is a ram baby, and if you have a spare save file, you can resurrect the dead, which is (was) better than Billy's "last known good configuration" except that facility (imo) used to be quite hit and miss and it was probably better to use "format C: Y/N".

None of my friends using Puppy have had any problems, but they are using it as a single user, maybe there is a case for a multi user Puppy?

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mikeb
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#37 Post by mikeb »

Well not sure if fixing puppy is related to using /root for users.

Indeed easy break / easy fix reminds me sooo much of windows 98...perhaps thats why the MS icons are used :D

Multiuser...well I added it just to see if it could be done...never use it myself..like other things GNU its obtuse and annoying in use. Most just want custom profiles for individual users rather than a warm sense of security.
Its also a must for anyone using in a public enviroment such as a internet cafe or a club.... puppy lacking it must restrict its wider usage in such enviroments except for the foolhardy.

Personally I think spot is a complete waste of time and a cludgy example of providing a roll of tin foil for the paranoid. :D

all fun...no games

mike

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Smithy
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#38 Post by Smithy »

mikeb wrote:
Personally I think spot is a complete waste of time and a cludgy example of providing a roll of tin foil for the paranoid. :D

all fun...no games

mike
Very handy is tinfoil :) I sit my little hifi units on a bed of it to improve dab and fm reception, works well!

So back on topic Mike, do you think you and the boyz could get together a multiuser pet that could be retrofitted to Puppy, that acts transparently, or is it far more complicated than that?

Barry K, James Bond and Kirk (to my knowledge, maybe other guys as well) have worked on the security idea, you reckon it's not the way to go, so maybe the scripts that have been built could be utilised in some way, to save some of the dull, laborious, mind numbing repetitive start again method that is seen in Puppy too frequently.

I'm just wondering, not saying/ordering that you guys get it together and make a multi user or whatever. It's not Flight of the Phoenix :wink:

Actually maybe Barry put Spot in Root for a laugh. I might have had a message that said, Relax you are now under Spot, no invasion, even from worlds known or unknown or even unknowable can ever cause you any harm whatsoever, sponsored by Bacofoil.

Must admit though, it's great that Puppy doesn't have permission problems, and when Lobster and Nooby were around, we went through all the security concerns and the general consensus was it was okay as is, except for one thing which was an apparent useful annoyance. But it was fixed as a turn on/off option.

Four paragraphs, that's far too much writing from me!

All you wanted to know was why Spot 'aint in home. :)
Last edited by Smithy on Sat 18 Apr 2015, 10:39, edited 1 time in total.

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mikeb
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#39 Post by mikeb »

Hmm tinfoil and a dv27 for CB heaven

Yes think spot was a donation to the paranoid... so probably a bit of a giggle.
Thing is its now being taken painfully seriously as if it makes some kind of difference to security.

To me if traveling down that road do the job properly.... slax has always had multiuser though is root by default...and that's a live ram loading linux with squashfs union layers.
So back on topic Mike, do you think you and the boyz could get together a multiuser pet that could be retrofitted to Puppy, that acts transparently, or is it far more complicated than that?
If only life was that simple... I suppose the woof thing would be the way but a one line change is a major battle. Plus I am a one man band here.
Making a pet...well I think you know the answer....variety is not the spice in this case.
I added multiuser to 2.12 to see what was involved... was fun but then things were far less complicated/messy. Most of the principles still apply though...I gave 4.12 the same treatment... went ok. Lucid might be done at some point.
I partly did it just because it makes the boot structure much nicer...more linux like .

From the forum I see 2 desires... one is to have several profiles ...keep the family happy stuff... and the other is to have a login to keep the family out. Both can be handled without being truly multiuser and indeed losing root power would simply annoy.

My right click on this mouse is failing...ruins my spellchecking...now that needs fixing. As for spot..I moved it. :D

Mike

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Smithy
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#40 Post by Smithy »

Ha, you moved it, good job :wink:

At least your thread might have provided food for thought on a login and profile system that doesn't get in the way of root users and, as there are so many different Puppies, can be installed as a pet.

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mikeb
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#41 Post by mikeb »

Well the usual advice is to remove the autologinroot from inittab.
That unfortunately leaves you at a console login and then exec xwin is needed.

If something like Slim was used at that point just to make it nice that would probably fulfil that need...Slim itself not so simple as it really need a proper linux boot structure to work ok and puppy xwin/jwm/rox is pretty unfriendly to that.

As for profile..I guess the 'choose yer savefile' at boot does that job.

I prefer thought for food...

mike

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mikeb
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#42 Post by mikeb »

hey smithy this looks like a neat approach :)

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=98825

sooo simple :)
I never new grub could do that...

mike

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Smithy
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#43 Post by Smithy »

Nice, interesting comment/ question from s243a :
"Being able to encrypt the drive is one thing but can we also somehow integrate this with a BIOS password so that other systems can't write to the drive without the password?"

Could be quite a scary prospect, the above, but would add quite a bit of protection as an option. Personally I would probably forget the password and have to get a new bios chip or something..

Don't use grub meself, but is there a way of adding it to the Idlinux.sys file, for people who use that bootloader?

Either way, a nice piece of script to add to Puppy :)

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mikeb
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#44 Post by mikeb »

Don't use grub meself, but is there a way of adding it to the Idlinux.sys file, for people who use that bootloader?
well not familiar myself but if grub had the option you never know :)

never tried encypting drives or saves myself...read too many posts from those who have and come unstuck...

But the boot login seems a nice way for those who don't have or believe they have the CIA outside their front door :D

mike

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Smithy
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#45 Post by Smithy »

Well I had a very nice couple from the Jehovahs at the door last weekend, does that count?

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mikeb
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#46 Post by mikeb »

Well I had a very nice couple from the Jehovahs at the door last weekend, does that count?
that seems to work in reverse..
they don't come any more as we know too much about them....

mike

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Burn_IT
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#47 Post by Burn_IT »

I had a couple walk away when I tried to convert them to Heinlein's "Thou art God"
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett

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dejan555
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#48 Post by dejan555 »

mikeb, since you like to build your own pups you can easily move spot to /home and I don't think I need to explain you how :)

Puppy does have multiuser ability just like any other distro, but in the very begining of writing puppy scripts Barry made choice not to think about other users then root, and so many of those scripts place configuration files in the places where normal users can't access them etc... and that's why you can't launch X and many other apps when not running as root.

So now we have to rewrite scripts and fix things to get multiuser going... this wouldn't affect puppy size a lot at all so all the talk about puppy being compact for running as root only doesn't add up.

In dpup 486/487 I tried to implement multiuser - I think I didn't move spot, but any new users created have home dir in /home and I even sent modified files on woof-CE forum that would solve the root/user issue for the big part but it wasn't accepted (I didn't make changes through git though so maybe noone even bothered to test the tar I attached)
puppy.b0x.me stuff mirrored [url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_Mb589v0iCXNnhSZWRwd3R2UWs]HERE[/url] or [url=http://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_puppy.b0x.me_mirror]HERE[/url]

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mikeb
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#49 Post by mikeb »

Yes not major changes and thats not the problem...getting it accepted is.

I made 2.12 multiuser and later on 4.12... used slim for the login manager.

Other fun bunny though is that some of those /root only script would be root only anyway...eg setting up wifi.....so there is less to change plus gradually ~/ and $HOME has been adopted by scripts.

My question was really as read WHY is spot in /root...after all running as a user still requires configs to be in that folder whereever it is.

Part of a broader question of why does /root have to be so cluttered.

But then you could ask why is the menu so cluttered someone is writing a search for it.

Why are the icons soooo ugly....

Why is background cpu usage so high...

Why......

Sorry asking annoying questions is part of my solitary existance...

mike

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#50 Post by dejan555 »

Yeah , I don't know, it doesn't have any sense for one's home dir to be inside another user's home dir... let's make third user and set it's home dir inside spot's... we need to go DEEPER :lol:
All good questions, but that's just the way someone decided to be.
puppy.b0x.me stuff mirrored [url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_Mb589v0iCXNnhSZWRwd3R2UWs]HERE[/url] or [url=http://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_puppy.b0x.me_mirror]HERE[/url]

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