After very recent updates the whole Applications->Preferences menu just vanished and together with it all entries for configuring such details like fonts and how they are rendered, keyboard layout and shortcuts, how menus and windows and mouse behave, network proxy settings, options for removable media, screensaver, themes, you name it. All the basic stuff.
It is true that something called Applications->Other showed up and which covers stuff which really only root should ever see. There is also something new named Desktop->Preferences wasting together with new "Places" more of a valuable space on a panel. None of the things mentioned above show up there. There are some _extremely_ important things in this submenu like "Login Photo". And there is something called "Mail Transport Agent Switcher" which shows up even if you have only _one_ MTA installed and there is nothing really to switch.
But assuming that you have at least two MTAs it will indeed switch. Moreover it will do to that from a non-root account and without asking for any passwords. Truly amazing! I am not sure how it does that; it does not seem to be something obvious like "suid root" somewhere, at least not where you would look, but this does happen. Links in system directories do change. Now every Dick and Harry can randomly mess, at any moment, with yours carefuly crafted and configured mail setup. A barrel of fun. If you happen to have two MTAs installed this must be, obviously, to provide some entertainment.
Is all the above just unfinished yet a version transition or some kind of an elaborate joke? If this is a joke then I do not get it.
Michal
Michal Jaegermann wrote:
After very recent updates the whole Applications->Preferences menu just vanished and together with it all entries for configuring such details like fonts and how they are rendered, keyboard layout and shortcuts, how menus and windows and mouse behave, network proxy settings, options for removable media, screensaver, themes, you name it. All the basic stuff.
It is true that something called Applications->Other showed up and which covers stuff which really only root should ever see. There is also something new named Desktop->Preferences wasting together with new "Places" more of a valuable space on a panel. None of the things mentioned above show up there. There are some _extremely_ important things in this submenu like "Login Photo". And there is something called "Mail Transport Agent Switcher" which shows up even if you have only _one_ MTA installed and there is nothing really to switch.
But assuming that you have at least two MTAs it will indeed switch. Moreover it will do to that from a non-root account and without asking for any passwords. Truly amazing! I am not sure how it does that; it does not seem to be something obvious like "suid root" somewhere, at least not where you would look, but this does happen. Links in system directories do change. Now every Dick and Harry can randomly mess, at any moment, with yours carefuly crafted and configured mail setup. A barrel of fun. If you happen to have two MTAs installed this must be, obviously, to provide some entertainment.
Is all the above just unfinished yet a version transition or some kind of an elaborate joke? If this is a joke then I do not get it.
Michal
This is a bug, just file a bugzilla against Gnome or KDE, or whatever Destop Environment you use.
On Wed, 2005-02-02 at 11:52 +0100, Harald Hoyer wrote:
Is all the above just unfinished yet a version transition or some kind of an elaborate joke? If this is a joke then I do not get it.
Michal
This is a bug, just file a bugzilla against Gnome or KDE, or whatever Destop Environment you use.
Or just wait until the dust from the Gnome 2.10 transition settles. This is rawhide.
Matthias
Hi,
On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 23:32 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
Is all the above just unfinished yet a version transition or some kind of an elaborate joke? If this is a joke then I do not get it.
Moving Applications -> Desktop Preferences to Desktop -> Preferences is intentional and the result of much upstream discussion.
However, any missing menu items or menu items that you feel shouldn't be in the menu are probably just teething issues which you should log against redhat-menus. Before you do so, though, make sure you have the very latest gnome-menus and that the gnome-menus package isn't installing any .menu or .directory files.
Oh, and we shouldn't have Applications -> Other I don't think - that's another bug for redhat-menus.
Cheers, Mark.
On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 02:14:39PM +0000, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
Hi,
On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 23:32 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
Is all the above just unfinished yet a version transition or some kind of an elaborate joke? If this is a joke then I do not get it.
Moving Applications -> Desktop Preferences to Desktop -> Preferences is intentional and the result of much upstream discussion.
This is not a big issue per se. What I strongly dislike though is that "custom menu" is getting longer and longer. Think about somebody with a poorer sight who really needs much bigger letters, and add on the top of it a translation to some language where descriptions tend to be more verbose, although "Applications" is not a four letter word either, and you ate much of a panel. Multiple panels are not a universal option. I would like to have at least a possibility to replace these "headers" with some, even abstract, icons. Tools to customize menus, at last, would be nice too.
However, any missing menu items or menu items that you feel shouldn't be in the menu are probably just teething issues which you should log against redhat-menus. Before you do so, though, make sure you have the very latest gnome-menus and that the gnome-menus package isn't installing any .menu or .directory files.
At this moment this seem to be a somewhat mess. Old redhat-menus and new gnome-menus, which was all what was available yesterday, collide a bit and that is why I was just asking what is going on. Quite possibly things will get more orderly in short time.
OTOH this "MTA Switcher" on a menu left me scratching my head. How often do you perform such operation? Every second day, once a week, once a year or once in a blue moon after careful consideration of pros and cons? And the fact that it even works for a non-root and without any password got me floored. Somebody may even use it in a full innocence not realizing what s/he is doing. How this may happen?
Michal
Michal Jaegermann wrote:
OTOH this "MTA Switcher" on a menu left me scratching my head. How often do you perform such operation? Every second day, once a week, once a year or once in a blue moon after careful consideration of pros and cons? And the fact that it even works for a non-root and without any password got me floored. Somebody may even use it in a full innocence not realizing what s/he is doing. How this may happen?
You may have input your root password before, so /usr/sbin/userhelper remembers it for a certain time.
On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 11:42:04AM +0100, Harald Hoyer wrote:
Michal Jaegermann wrote:
And the fact that it even works for a non-root and without any password got me floored.
You may have input your root password before, so /usr/sbin/userhelper remembers it for a certain time.
Hm, that "certain time" would have to be some weeks. How long is that memory in 'userhelper'? Seems to be way too long. In any case if I tried at that time to check this possibility and activated printing configuration from "Other" submenu I was promptly asked for a root password. So in this case it looks that it was already forgotten. In case you wonder I hit "Cancel" instead of giving a password.
I wonder if "remembering" a root password anywhere even for a few minutes is worth possible screwups and aggravations. If you cannot type it then you obviously do not have a business messing around with system settings. Looks to me like a huge security hole.
This is a "rawhide, hack-and-scratch" installation and I mostly torture it from a root account. Non-root logins exist only for test purposes. :-)
Michal
On Wed, 2005-02-02 at 17:58 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 02:14:39PM +0000, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
Hi,
On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 23:32 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
Is all the above just unfinished yet a version transition or some kind of an elaborate joke? If this is a joke then I do not get it.
Moving Applications -> Desktop Preferences to Desktop -> Preferences is intentional and the result of much upstream discussion.
This is not a big issue per se. What I strongly dislike though is that "custom menu" is getting longer and longer. Think about somebody with a poorer sight who really needs much bigger letters, and add on the top of it a translation to some language where descriptions tend to be more verbose, although "Applications" is not a four letter word either, and you ate much of a panel. Multiple panels are not a universal option. I would like to have at least a possibility to replace these "headers" with some, even abstract, icons. Tools to customize menus, at last, would be nice too.
That's a discussion for upstream where it has already been agonized over.
OTOH this "MTA Switcher" on a menu left me scratching my head. How often do you perform such operation? Every second day, once a week, once a year or once in a blue moon after careful consideration of pros and cons? And the fact that it even works for a non-root and without any password got me floored. Somebody may even use it in a full innocence not realizing what s/he is doing. How this may happen?
Dude, its rawhide, its buggy, it wasn't a design decision. Log bugs :-)
(Or preferably see if you can figure out how to fix it in redhat-menus and submit a patch)
Mark.
On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 11:43:56AM +0000, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
That's a discussion for upstream where it has already been agonized over.
These "discussions upstream" about user interface issues seem to be going in pretty narrow circles. In particular participants apparently enjoy a good eyesight and big monitor screens.
I afraid that it is physically impossible to participate in every mailing list around. I already have really too many of these on my plate.
Dude, its rawhide, its buggy, it wasn't a design decision. Log bugs :-)
How on earth I can know that without asking? In the past there were various situations when I told myself "nobody half-sane would ever do something like that" only to be told "this is like it is supposed to be and end of discussion". Oh, well ....
(Or preferably see if you can figure out how to fix it in redhat-menus and submit a patch)
I tried that already. It is a maze. It surely beats nethack for an entertainment value. :-) I have no doubts that it can be eventually untangled once enough of time can be devoted to that task.
Michal
On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 23:32 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
Is all the above just unfinished yet a version transition or some kind of an elaborate joke? If this is a joke then I do not get it.
The transition to GNOME 2.9.x has a few bumps along the way. The devel tree today looks a little bit more consistent (and I have a working Applications->Preferences).
Jeremy
On Wed, 2005-02-02 at 14:04 -0500, Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 23:32 -0700, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
Is all the above just unfinished yet a version transition or some kind of an elaborate joke? If this is a joke then I do not get it.
The transition to GNOME 2.9.x has a few bumps along the way. The devel tree today looks a little bit more consistent (and I have a working Applications->Preferences).
Ah, but that *is* a bug :-) We won't have Applications->Preferences and Desktop->Preferences once we've had a chance to fix up redhat-menus to reflect more closely the upstream changes.
Mark.
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Harald Hoyer -
Jeremy Katz -
Mark McLoughlin -
Matthias Clasen -
Michal Jaegermann