aptdaemon?

On 04/08/2012 04:29 AM, crankypuss wrote:

"Aptdaemon allows normal users to perform package management tasks, e.g.
refreshing the cache, upgrading the system, installing or removing
software packages."

WTF? I thought the idea was to prevent the "normal users" from doing
that stuff, keeping it to the sudoers who presumably know what they're
doing.

Have I woken up speaking space-alien this morning, or is this something
that should not even ever be installed, much less upgraded?

Well you might say about aptdaemon - WTF. It is crashing all the time
on Ubuntu 12.04. When you report it to Launchpad it says it's a known
bug and will be fixed - real soon now

On 04/08/2012 02:34 AM, Marty Felker wrote:

On 04/08/2012 04:29 AM, crankypuss wrote:

"Aptdaemon allows normal users to perform package management tasks, e.g.
refreshing the cache, upgrading the system, installing or removing
software packages."

WTF? I thought the idea was to prevent the "normal users" from doing
that stuff, keeping it to the sudoers who presumably know what they're
doing.

Have I woken up speaking space-alien this morning, or is this something
that should not even ever be installed, much less upgraded?

Well you might say about aptdaemon - WTF. It is crashing all the time on
Ubuntu 12.04. When you report it to Launchpad it says it's a known bug
and will be fixed - real soon now

I looked into removing it. Lots of stuff goes away if it's removed,
including software-center. I'm not that impressed by software-center,
but it does know what to do with a deb file download. Not sure if
Synaptic could be used as the app to open a deb file or not... ought to
be able to handle it but I've never tried that. Beats me, I have other
fish to fry.

How is 12.04 in general, are they still only offering Unity or have they
started also offering other desktop managers (if that's the right term)?
I'm using gnome-fallback and will just stay put with that until I can
install a newer version of Ubuntu that isn't so tightly hooked to Unity
and zeitgeist and all that stuff.

On Sun, 08 Apr 2012 03:05:40 -0600, crankypuss
wrote:

On 04/08/2012 02:34 AM, Marty Felker wrote:

On 04/08/2012 04:29 AM, crankypuss wrote:

"Aptdaemon allows normal users to perform package management tasks, e.g.
refreshing the cache, upgrading the system, installing or removing
software packages."

WTF? I thought the idea was to prevent the "normal users" from doing
that stuff, keeping it to the sudoers who presumably know what they're
doing.

Have I woken up speaking space-alien this morning, or is this something
that should not even ever be installed, much less upgraded?

Well you might say about aptdaemon - WTF. It is crashing all the time on
Ubuntu 12.04. When you report it to Launchpad it says it's a known bug
and will be fixed - real soon now

I looked into removing it. Lots of stuff goes away if it's removed,
including software-center.

Good, SC is too slow for me (but I'll use it if I have to).

I'm not that impressed by software-center,
but it does know what to do with a deb file download.

So does gdebi. ;-)

https://launchpad.net/gdebi

Not sure if
Synaptic could be used as the app to open a deb file or not

Nor me.

.. ought to
be able to handle it but I've never tried that. Beats me, I have other
fish to fry.

Same here, one last concrete slab to lay as a 'foot' for a large
garden store.


Cheers, T i m

On Sunday 08 April 2012 10:29, crankypuss conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.ubuntu...

"Aptdaemon allows normal users to perform package management tasks,
e.g. refreshing the cache, upgrading the system, installing or
removing software packages."

WTF? I thought the idea was to prevent the "normal users" from doing
that stuff, keeping it to the sudoers who presumably know what they're
doing.

Yes, but unfortunately a lot of distro makers are now granting (more or
less) limited sets of elevated privileges to "normal users", so that
they wouldn't have to become root. This works by way of something
called "policykit", of which "packagekit" is the implementation to do
what you described above.

It all fits in with the single-user paradigm for desktop machines [*],
which was carried over from MS-Windows. Users - read: (ex-)Windows
GNUbies - demand that sort of stuff, or so it seems, "because they're
used to it" a "because that's what Windows does and it's so much easier
than having to become root", or even - heaven forbid! - typing "sudo".

They call it "user-friendliness". Personally I would call it
"perverse", or "an abomination". But then again, that's just me, the
left-brained DLU, with his obsolete preference for logic, sanity and
responsibility. ;-)

Have I woken up speaking space-alien this morning, or is this
something that should not even ever be installed, much less upgraded?

It's probably something Canonical considers important enough that Ubuntu
wants to install it and keep it there, at the penalty of taking half the
system with it if you were to decide to remove it.


[*] In the UNIX world, we used to speak of "workstations", rather than
"desktops", but then later on the distinction was made between the
two concepts on the basis of technical specifications, with the
term "workstation" now applying to a desktop or desk-side machine
with enterprise-grade hardware which is explicitly designed for
24/7 operation, and which runs a multi-user operating system. In
the case of Microsoft, the latter is of course make-believe, but
they did make the distinction between a desktop and a workstation
in the past, when they were still selling their DOS-based Windows
versions. So a Windows 95/98/ME machine was called a desktop, and
a machine running an NT-based Windows was called a workstation,
but the distinction fell out of grace (with Microsoft) when Windows
XP was introduced, because it was intended to merge Microsoft's
"home offer" with their business-oriented offer. And this in turn
was the result of many businesses simply acquiring standard "off
the shelf" PCs with Windows 95/98/ME instead of going with NT or
Windows 2000 (which already had the "NT" moniker dropped from its
name).

= Aragorn (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

On Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:36:36 +0200, Aragorn
wrote:

It all fits in with the single-user paradigm for desktop machines [*],
which was carried over from MS-Windows. Users - read: (ex-)Windows
GNUbies - demand that sort of stuff, or so it seems, "because they're
used to it" a "because that's what Windows does and it's so much easier
than having to become root", or even - heaven forbid! - typing "sudo".

They call it "user-friendliness". Personally I would call it
"perverse", or "an abomination". But then again, that's just me, the
left-brained DLU, with his obsolete preference for logic, sanity and
responsibility. ;-)

Wow, we are slowly getting there. Well done you! ;-)

Much of what you say and we disagree over is for the same reason. You
are arguing for *your* reasons (as stated above) and I have been
arguing for the ordinary user ... the guy that just wants to get
things working and not actually get involved in the OS if he can
possibly avoid it.

Now, you say (with all you usual logic and sanity etc) that that isn't
the 'Linux paradigm, totally ignoring that is the very paradigm that
Canonical are pushing and promoting.

Therefore (as I have said before and you just fob off or ignore), your
'issues' are with Canonical, not with me or any other basic user that
just wants stuff working and an easy life.

Again, as you noted, Ubuntu (especially) is getting more and more
Windowsalike (in it's ease of administration [1] and use etc) and
again, you may be more surprised than me that that is the case. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[1] Ordinary users having more power by default etc. We don't want to
be locked out of our own systems (or have to jump through hoops), even
if it is for our own good *sometimes*.