was wondering what PolicyKit was

[Lisa]

and came across this back and forth read:

http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il/msg56872.html

I was curious about it because there is no good help manual on what the settings should be as some of them are vague in description, and it started to remind me of Windows services just a bit.  I just don't want Linux become Windux, or Linows.    
Lisa  Marie

[kondorv]

Too late! PolicyKit is the devs announcement to you that you are too st00pid to create user accounts with appropriate permissions. It's Vista for Linux.

If you don't like it, you'll need to find a distro that doesn't default to PolicyKit.

You see, MS has some (not much, but some) incentive to make something work, in some sort of way. It is called "profit". Apple, the boutique appliance store, has no incentive to fix anything, since boutiquers would never not-Apple even when Apple rips them off in a most obvious manner. Apple appliances are accessories for boutiquers.

Distro devs have no incentive to do anything they don't want to. And, the Linux mags and blogs, for the most part, will rave about how great Linux becomes, day by day, as though late openSUSE is now "much improved" over the older SuSE. Or, as though Fedora latest is now much superior to the FedoraCore releases.

Find a stripped-down, as opposed to dumbed-down distro. Install only what you want, as you want. Operate as root, and set your own policies. If a distro tells you that you are too st00pid to login as root - take a clue. It's the devs way to expressing their contempt for end users. Paternalistic.

Or, alternatively, develop a method for herding cats and share it.

[kondorv]

You can read the brief description here - http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2007/11/policykit_looser_limitations_t.html

And, you can scroll down to Permissions and Encryption here for the alternative - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=510812

Since the development is from RedHat, one supposes that the need was for the commercial side. It is intended as an Administrator's tool for an actual IT system.

So, everything on the desktop is compromise. If you are going to assume that Windows "transfers" are stupid, then the devs offer up something along that line. And, put PolicyKit on the desktop. And, they talk about "next year, the Desktop, then - the world." A system designed as desktop that hardly anyone uses - except as server.

The other side is that many "transferees" seem more interesting in colors and shaky windows than intestines.

So, you are offered a non-intuitive graphical mess without much instruction.  And, if you try to "neutralize" it, it will screw up the entire install. The same "stuff" is offered in Windows in the Professional and above systems. Administrator sets up passwords and account and account parameters. But, in XP (and I suppose the latter versions, you don't have to actually do it. And, it isn't that big a deal as the setup is neat and simple.

So, if you want to learn how to set permissions, etc., do what I suggested above in the first, somewhat strident post. Without going too rad, you could practice on Debian.

If you make much fuss about it, you will be assaulted and further insulted. And, you'll get a harangue such as the one here - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=716201  If you should ever feel the "heat" of such a scolding, just repeat the mantra "MS is evil; Windoze sux" and you recover eventually. You see, the irony is that Ubuntu's first few releases had a routine root setup at install, allowing a root login. They are now like reformed drunks running around screaming - "if you drink too much, you'll get drunk". I use that example since they are rapidly making Linux "free" only as in beer.

There is currently a great rush to "security" within Linux. That can be seen by the recent fix to the kernel wherein a kernel bug of more than 10 years duration was patched.  Whoopee! Course, the bug "discoverer" had to be insulted and mocked before a fix was done.

"And then, after installing the kernel patch, Mr. Gnomehead downloaded a delightfully curious and fascinating screensaver which dropped a rather sophisticated bot into his oh_so_secure_Linux box."