Groups, permisions, work flow

[Kaj Ailomaa]

Only an admin is allowed to install programs, and if the admin would be 
given a choice to include users to audio group during installation of a 
package (you can always answer no), than what is the problem? You'll 
have to do it anyway if you are intending to get realtime privilege 
(though many won't know they need to, and there's no telling when they 
realize the do).
This audio group problem is one of those things that make it endlessly 
frustrating for people who only wish to install audio apps and start 
using them.

As for Ubuntu Studio itself, it is intended for audio production, 
(amongst other things), and for Ubuntu Studio it makes no sense at all 
to leave users without realtime privilege when creating new users.

It is of course different when installing packages, but this one problem 
could so easily be clarified to any user (they would at least become 
aware of it) if it would be included in the install process of jackd.

On 2012-01-22 12:46, Ralf Madorf wrote:
> On Sun, 2012-01-22 at 03:58 +0100, Kaj Ailomaa wrote:
>> My point in bringing up this problem with audio group was that new users
>> (who wouldn't know about audio group) shouldn't have to create a new
>> user and find that the new user cannot use audio applications in realtime.
>> Having the option of administrating groups will of course always remain,
>> but from my point of view, a distro like UbuntuStudio should have audio
>> group as a default group for both the desktop and administrator users.
>> Not having that is in my view a bug.
>> As pointed out, the user who installs the system from DVD will belong to
>> audio group, but not in any other other case.
>>
>> But, in case you don't install from DVD...
>> When installing ubuntustudio-packages separately from another Ubuntu
>> based distro you will not get user to belong to audio group, and there
>> is no direct explanation to why realtime won't work in this situation.
>> While it is possible to find this out, isn't it much preferable for the
>> user not having to know? [snip]
>
> You can't handle permissions that slipshod if it's for a repository used
> by several "Sub-"Ubuntus. Note that I installed Edubuntu and then added
> the Ubuntu Studio repository. Now imagine that this Edubuntu is used by
> very young children (btw. it isn't used by children on my machine). It's
> better the admin needs to google for an issue such as a group audio,
> than automatically add users to groups. If you want your children being
> able to run http://www.tuxpaint.org, you might not want them to be able
> to run your audio work to sync a raunchy video too ;). This of cause
> isn't a good example, since we would disable permissions to open such a
> project folder, because a group audio anyway wouldn't protect against
> access.
> As long as your Linux is for a single user only and it e.g. might only
> be a DAW, perhaps without an Internet connection, you can set SUID for
> all folders, you can run audio sessions as root etc., but as soon as
> it's a multi-user machine, there's the need to have an admin with
> knowledge.
> Regarding to the group audio there might be no security issue, dunno, I
> just want to warn that there might be a risk we all miss.
>
> 2 Cents,
>
> Ralf
>
>