Fido -- a new use case.

[williwaw]

I see Barry is working on fido https://bkhome.org/news/202210/consider ... asyos.html for some new use cases

But what about some of the more traditional use cases?

As elemental as it is to puppy to run as root, have we as a community neglected offering an option to run in more "normal" modes? Would puppy be more popular or be adopted by more folks if those that did not wish to run solely as root have more choices?

[BarryK]

Well, "working on fido" is optimistic. Was just thinking about it.

One problem I want to get around is those apps that complain, or even refuse to run, if running as root.
Have this problem in containers, when running as "crippled root".

VLC is an example, we have to patch the source to run it as root.
VLC tries to detect if running in a container, then allows running as root; however, that detection only works for the mainstream containers such as docker.

At least VLC have tried to take into account a special situation where running as root. Other developers who put up a warning that you should not be running as root, or exit -- well, I have an expletive for them -- they don't seem to understand that "root" user is no longer black-and-white, it is many shades of grey.

Besides, I don't like others trying to be the policeman, telling me what I should or should not do on my own computer.

[williams2]

apps tend to check the users UID
user root's UID is usually 0

I just edited /etc/passwd

Code: Select all

root:x:502:502:root:/root:/bin/sh
spot:x:502:502:Linux User,,,:/home/spot:/bin/sh
puppy:x:0:0:puppy:/puppy:/bin/sh

So root's UID is now 502
and the UID of user puppy is now 0

Opening a new term:

Code: Select all

# whoami
puppy
# echo $UID
0
# su root
$ echo $UID
502
$ 
$ exit
exit
# whoami
puppy
#

GoboLinux does not have user root
user gobo is the admin gobo's UID is 0