[ale] why I love windows

[mike at trausch.us]

On 01/30/2012 01:46 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> Solution to the windows installer not running: (to install an .msi
> program an installer SERVICE must be running to understand what to do.
> what total crap.)

I could see using a similar model for Linux systems; actually, most
desktop systems these days use privileged helper services so that they
can delegate certain types of authority without giving the user the
ability to actually change their active user accounts, for example.  If
enough other infrastructure-y components were written for it, it would
be possible to do things like say “user Foo Bag can install software
packages but not remove them”, or “user Bar Bag can remove software
packages but not install them” for example.

The major difference, though is that IIRC PolicyKit doesn’t require that
services are running all the time.  It simply requires that they be
registered with D-Bus or something so that they can be spawned when
needed.  Services using that interface are free to exit immediately or
after an application-determined period of inactivity.

I need to get around to looking at applications that use PolicyKit so
that I can more completely understand how to use it, but I think that
the split there is very nice; it could potentially make tools like sudo
obsolete.  There are even command-line applications that have been
experimentally ported to use PolicyKit, though I cannot remember any of
them off the top of my head.

	--- Mike

-- 
A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
                                   --- Carveth Read, “Logic”

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