On Tuesday 15 September 2020, Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
> Anno domini 18:08:23 Tue, 15 Sep 2020 +0200 (CEST)
>
>  Felmon Davis scripsit:
> > On Tue, 15 Sep 2020, William Morder via tde-users wrote:
> > > Better not to give in to conspiracy-theory thinking here. I believe a
> > > simpler proportion is at work.
> > >
> > > The more money, property or power is involved, the greater the degree
> > > of corruption. Who was it that said it? Lord Acton? "Power corrupts.
> > > Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
> > >
> > > Corruption creeps in by small degrees. It starts with somebody offering
> > > front-row seats at some special, exclusive event, or just being given
> > > "free money" or other unearned bonuses and perks.
> > >
> > > In all this technophobic conspiracy thinking, there is a simpler
> > > principle at work. People who are in business want to know who are
> > > their customers. (It makes more sense in a small business, where we
> > > meet in person.) When we move into situations where the people in
> > > business never actually meet most of their customers, they must find
> > > other ways to get to "know" them. At first, I'm sure, they mean well,
> > > and only want to serve the needs and wants of people who buy or use
> > > their goods and services; but as the company and customer base grows,
> > > and as competition also increases, then comes the need for greater
> > > control.
> > >
> > > And now, we the users are not even really exactly "customers" or
> > > "clients", but just use what we get for free; and because it's free, of
> > > course, we are taught that we should not complain or make demands, but
> > > just be grateful.
> > >
> > > In the end, we, the customers, users, renters (whatever our situation)
> > > become the least important part; in fact, an obstacle to doing
> > > business. What the business person would prefer, really, is just to
> > > withdraw money directly from our accounts, without any interaction from
> > > ourselves. But this is only because doing business in person is
> > > becoming a rare occasion any more.
> > >
> > > Bill
> >
> > there may be truth in some of this but it seems a bit like
> > thread-drift - perhaps retraction of apfelstr�del must be considered;
> > how does this relate to systemd-homed?
> >
> > it seems systemd-homed brings precisely the benefit which Kate
> > mentioned is lacking in our usual way of moving 'home'; she wrote:
> >
> > "I don't understand why this is even needed?! I can already move home
> > directories without a problem. Been doing it for years. I just make
> > sure to use the same user on the same distro, same etc. Works
> > perfectly. Or I save key settings (konq bookmarks, FF bms, etc) it's
> > so easy after that to just retheme to spec."
> >
> > I take it with systemd-homed one doesn't get trapped by shifting UIDs
> > and such. they write (partial quotation),
> >
> > "Linux assigns UIDs in the order usernames are registered on a
> > machine. you may get UID 1000 if you are the first user on a laptop
> > and you could get 1001 on another laptop if you are the second user to
> > be registered there. This poses a problem if you move a home directory
> > container from machine A where you're UID 1000 to machine B where you
> > are 1001. systemd-homed solves this by doing a chown -R on the entire
> > home directory if there is a conflict. [...]"
> >
> > I once fell athwart of that! not to mention that 'home' gets encrypted.
> >
> > why isn't this a net bonus?
>
> There are hords of resons.
> 1) security relies on trust into the computer you plug your home in. Well,
> that's a bad plan to begin with. System is compromised, sor your home is
> now compromised, too. And becaus of the ease to do, you compromomise all
> systems you go to that day and the next day ... 2) TRhis problem was solved
> when? 40 years ago? When was it, NFS+yellowpages was introduced? 3) It does
> not address at all the problems of different hardware and different OS. You
> can share your home on any *nix system you like - if you are a bit coutious
> - without systemd-homed. You cannot any more when you use systemd-homed. 4)
> WTF encrypted JSON? This is soooo systemd. Remember the "benefits" of
> binary logfiles? 5) "systemd-homed" looks more like "systemd-owned" than
> anything else.
>
> Nik
>
Agreed. My gut tells me this is going to backfire but only after it's been 
adopted. No thanks. I'll do it the old fashioned way. 

I've transplanted by home across different distros with some judicious pruning 
and have never had a problem. Red Hat to Debian, Debian to Slackware, 
Slackware to Ark Linux, Ark Linux to BD PCLOS. No problems I couldn't handle.

The biggest problem I have now is that the dialog for applying an icon to an 
application button, freezes and I'll eventually figure that out. I don't 
believe it's related to my users because it happens on new users. I think I'm 
installing something that's causing the problem.

I don't like the idea of "I'll think for you" software.

Kate