[ubuntu-us-ut] Ubuntu's default groups

[Leif Andersen]

I agree that that is a bit more complex than it should be.  Sure, I think
everything should 'automagiacally' work out of the box, but I don't think
user groups is the right place to put the 'cddrive group', or the 'scanner
group'.  It's sort of like saying that the best place to put your long term
storage, is in the trunk of your car, a square peg put into a round hole
just doesn't fit.  The user should have a bunch of settings where the admins
can allow him/her to be able to use the cd drive, or the scanner, something
like chmod (but graphical and friendly), not as a form of usergroups.

~Leif
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On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 16:26, Aaron Toponce <aaron.toponce at gmail.com> wrote:

> Christer Edwards wrote:
> > If the users are put into the widest range of groups to begin with
> > there shouldn't be any reason why they'd be running usermod -G and
> > screwing things up. Also, group membership is important for access to
> > the hardware. On my Arch machine I forgot to put myself into the audio
> > and optical group and couldn't use my CD drive or listen to audio.
>
> This is odd to me. Why should you be a member of your group to access
> hardware? Isn't that the kernel's responsibility? On my Debian machine:
>
> uid=1000(aaron) gid=1000(aaron) groups=119(fuse),1000(aaron)
>
> I'm in the fuse group, so I can mount fuse filesystems locally to one of
> my directories without root privileges. However, I can still access
> audio cds, play music, access my attached printer, watch videos, mount
> thumb drives, and everything else just fine. I'm failing to see the
> advantage adding myself to 13 groups provides.
>
> Now, maybe this is standard, tacking on 13 groups to the default user.
> However, here's Solaris:
>
> uid=1001(aaron) gid=1(other)
>
> ... and HP-UX:
>
> uid=106(aaron) gid=20(users)
>
> ... and RHEL:
>
> uid=503(aaron) gid=503(aaron) groups=503(aaron)
>
> However, pulling up Mac OS X is completely different:
>
> uid=502(aaron) gid=20(staff)
>
> groups=20(staff),402(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1),204(_developer),100(_lpoperator),98(_lpadmin),81(_appserveradm),80(admin),79(_appserverusr),61(localaccounts),12(everyone),403(com.apple.sharepoint.group.2),401(com.apple.access_screensharing)
>
> Really odd group accounts too, but whatever. Not sure how much is
> actually necessary, like "com.apple.sharepoint.group.1". So, maybe
> Ubuntu is trying to mimic Mac OS X? I'm still failing to see the
> advantages though.
>
> > If you want stuff to "just work" and not require any manual
> > configuration, use Ubuntu. If you want a stripped, strict
> > UNIX-standard system maybe Ubuntu isn't the right answer for your
> > system.
>
> I'm not looking for any answer to my needs. I've already found it, and
> Ubuntu fits in that picture. What I'm asking is why the change/need,
> when I can easily do everything on Debian, being in 2 groups, that takes
> 13 to do on Ubuntu.
>
> Consider for a moment Fedora moving X11 from tty7 to tty1. It was a
> change that brought no apparent advantage, and broke tons, and tons of
> documentation. The developers were just tired of it on tty7, and thought
> it was time for a change.
>
> If a change warrants a strong technical advantage, or clearly brings
> about great benefits, then by all means make the change, but what does
> moving X11 from tty7 to tty1 or putting a user in 13 default groups do
> for the system? I'm not griping as much as I really want to know.
>
> --
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