[PLUG] back to basics (some advice sought)

[Tim Slighter]

its all about personal preference.  I totally lock my laptop down so
that it only comes up in console mode only with everything in place
(encrypted file systems, bastille, noshell, etc) and try at all possible
to conduct all my internet activity using console based tools only. 
Snownews for rss, mutt for mail, lynx for web, why they even have
calendars, project planners, and so much more that can be done using
console or curses based environments.  No eye candy but I can get my job
done and have a lot less exploitable applications running.  I suppose if
I wanted to be extremely paranoid I could run each and every one of
these applications in a chroot but too much work.  If and when I am
forced to use a desktop environment (such as a java based web page -I
can't wait until someone builds a curses or text based browser that can
run java), I resort to using startx with XFCE4.  Login managers use
unnecessary resources and can easily be done without imo.

However, if you have a serious high power computer and have a need to
use multiple desktop environments (KDE, Gnome, XFCE4, etc), then a login
manager is necessary.



Rogan Creswick wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Michael M. Moore
> <michael at writemoore.net> wrote:
>   
>> I just thought, since most distros seem to use one by default, it must
>> do Something Important.  But I don't know what that might be.
>>
>>     
>
> My understanding is that it is a security-related.  I can't test this
> at the moment, but I think you can kill X with the 3-finger salute
> (ctrl-alt-bksp) even when a screen locker is running. If you're using
> a login manager that launches X directly, then killing X just puts you
> at a login prompt.  However, if you're launching X from a logged-in
> shell, then killing X puts you at the current user's command prompt.
> Now, if you give someone you don't trust physical access to your
> machine, they can wreak all kinds of havok, anyway, but it takes
> substantially less time to do so if they can get directly to a prompt
> with one keystroke.
>
> Granted, that may still not be a huge concern -- it all depends on your useage.
>
> --Rogan
>
>
>
>
>   
>> Michael M.
>>
>> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_display_manager
>> [2] http://tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/sect_07_03.html
>> [3] http://slim.berlios.de/
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>>     
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