way to reduce passwords

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kukamuumuka

Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by kukamuumuka »

Just a question: How many times an average user need to write the password when he or she uses a computer?
rene
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Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by rene »

Good question. Run out and fetch us an average user. We shall observe and take note!
kukamuumuka

Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by kukamuumuka »

rene wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:52 am Good question. Run out and fetch us an average user. We shall observe and take note!
I mostly write the password on the login screen, and if updates is available, I write the second time when installing updates.
rene
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Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by rene »

Poster above reframed the matter in the specific context of the "installation and configuration phase". I came in at Mint 17 and do in fact remember that the initial password flurry was enough to give me pause. What have you, login, mintsources to select a local mirror as directed, these days timeshift to set up backups as directed, mintupdate to generally first of all update mintupdate, mintupdate again for other updates since it restarted, login configuration, many sudo's certainly if you're new to the Darkebian side of things and googling together internet instructions, ...

Yes, while simply using the system the bother is (relatively) minimal and I moreover at this point am familiar enough with the way of doing things in Mint that I avoid the vast majority without even noticing I do -- but yes, it was my first annoyance with Mint when I was new to it: can as such sympathize.
janneh

Re: modular security and counterargument

Post by janneh »

gm10 wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:52 am As someone who opposes your original suggestion I don't have a problem with this one here, on the other hand. But do you have any examples of repeated prompts? Because I'm coming up with a blank. A single installation should never request more than a single authentication. Your credentials ever remain cached for a few minutes afterwards, so even subsequent installations during that time frame don't require additional authentication.
I'm thinking more of the configuration phase, where you have to type in your password changing your software sources, installing your updates, for example. The password don't get cached, since there is no auth_admin_keep_global option in pkexec's configuration. I have to admit I'm little comparing it to the Windows installation, lucky I don't have to enter the Product Key. :wink:
gm10

Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by gm10 »

Fair enough. The solution to this could be to add a setup wizard that guides through the initial setup on first run. I had already suggested this in another context. But otherwise it's not really possible to accomplish - as you said, there is no global authentication unlock (and I would strongly oppose the idea).
janneh

Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by janneh »

administrollaattori wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 12:33 pm I mostly write the password on the login screen, and if updates is available, I write the second time when installing updates.
I have (with help from a script) wrote a .pkla file:
/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/com.ubuntu.pkexec.synaptic.pkla

containing:
[com.ubuntu.pkexec.synaptic]
Identity=unix-user:0;unix-group:sudo;unix-group:admin
Action=com.ubuntu.pkexec.synaptic
ResultActive=yes


which makes the second password dialog to go away for local admin-users. Thanks to Rene for the how-to! You can copy actions from the password dialogs and create respective .pkla files to tune your system. Hope this helps!

edit: note I have LM19 (Tara) on my machine, other versions may have different action names
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BG405
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Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by BG405 »

Interesting that the KDE team have added a feature to remember the password on some applications e.g. KDE Partition Manager, in the later Plasma 5 versions. I don't remember seeing this in LM17.3 KDE (Plasma 4) nor LM18.2 KDE (Plasma 5); I'll check the LM18.2 KDE system shortly.

Here's a screenshot, not cropped so people won't mistake it for a Mint installation:
Screenshot_20180928_121030.jpg
(Sorry it's a bit dark, looks OK on the machine itself).

I'm not sure at this point whether it's a good thing or not; I'm leaning towards the latter.
Last edited by BG405 on Fri Sep 28, 2018 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
Dell Inspiron 1525 - LM17.3 CE 64-------------------Lenovo T440 - Manjaro KDE with Mint VMs
Toshiba NB250 - Manjaro KDE------------------------Acer Aspire One D255E - LM21.3 Xfce
Acer Aspire E11 ES1-111M - LM18.2 KDE 64 ----Two ROMS don't make a WRITE
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catweazel
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Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by catweazel »

BG405 wrote: Fri Sep 28, 2018 8:17 am Need to tweak the theme
Understatement of the millennium.
"There is, ultimately, only one truth -- cogito, ergo sum -- everything else is an assumption." - Me, my swansong.
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BG405
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Re: way to reduce passwords

Post by BG405 »

:D
The screen on that netbook is really bright. Turning it down makes it look dull and washed out, whereas this theme looks nice and colourful without eyestrain. The non-focussed windows are also faded, which makes it look worse than it is. Should have twiddled with the gamma in GIMP! .. or turned off the desktop effects :wink:

ETA: I've tweaked it a bit, hope that's better.
Dell Inspiron 1525 - LM17.3 CE 64-------------------Lenovo T440 - Manjaro KDE with Mint VMs
Toshiba NB250 - Manjaro KDE------------------------Acer Aspire One D255E - LM21.3 Xfce
Acer Aspire E11 ES1-111M - LM18.2 KDE 64 ----Two ROMS don't make a WRITE
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