Re: Theory question on desktop and gmc

[Federico Mena Quintero <federico nuclecu unam mx>]

>  Hi all. I thought up something the other day and was trying to figure it
>  out. Currently in gnome gmc and the desktop appear to be the same
>  program (ie if you want desktop icons, gmc has to be running, even
>  though you have no windows open. Also, every time gmc crashes (which is
>  fairly often) all the desktop icons disappear and are then recreated
>  when gmc respawns). Why is this? Wouldn't it be a better idea to have a
>  sepereate, small program to manage the desktop icons and have it run gmc
>  when someone clicks on "Home Directory" or something similar?

If MC crashes, it is a bug.  Please tell us how to reproduce it so
that we can fix it.

It may be a good idea to do the separation you propose.  Right now the
file manager is being rewritten/cleaned up so that we can have a
better organization.

>  This would also help out on the problem of a user needing to temporarily
>  run a root gmc. Two gmc's could be run at the same time w/o them
>  fighting over the desktop. Also on the "temporary root" issue: the
>  mandrake update utility allows you to run it as a normal user, and when
>  it needs root access it asks for the password. Does anyone know how they
>  got that working?

This needs to be done using a helper program.  You do ***NOT*** want
to make gmc setuid root.  This would be a security hole bigger than
<insert-least-favorite-person's-name-here>'s mouth.  I hope the
Mandrake guys did the right thing to avoid being on bugtraq.

  Federico