DRI3000 [LWN.net]

DRI3000

Posted Feb 23, 2013 23:10 UTC (Sat) by lindi (subscriber, #53135)
In reply to: DRI3000 by Serge
Parent article: LCA: The X-men speak

> you can configure display manager to autologin on tty1 and run a single program with the large "Switch User" button on it.

Before we can assess the security of your solution I think you need to first implement it. Before we can assess the usability of your solution I think you need at least a few hundred users. Sorry but the devil is usually in the implementation details :) Also, constantly running a second X server on tty1 wastes memory.

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DRI3000

Posted Feb 24, 2013 13:19 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Also, constantly running a second X server on tty1 wastes memory.

This waste is limited and should be similar to what Windows wastes for it's own login screen. So that's not a problem.

Before we can assess the security of your solution I think you need to first implement it. Before we can assess the usability of your solution I think you need at least a few hundred users.

This is a problem. Serge may argue that his solution is perfect (because it's not implemented and thus you can not argue about it's weaknesses) while I argue that it's extremely bad: solution which exists and is used is always more secure on practice then another solution which does not exist and is only imagined by someone.

DRI3000

Posted Feb 25, 2013 10:46 UTC (Mon) by Serge (guest, #84957) [Link]

> Before we can assess the security of your solution I think you need to first implement it.

It's easy. Create user "switcher", configure your DM to autologin it, and set its session to a shell script like this:

while true; do if zenity --info --text 'Switch Session'; then gdmflexiserver; fi; done

Just tested it with Ubuntu and LightDM.

> Before we can assess the usability of your solution I think you need at least a few hundred users.

How are you going to find them? Most people don't need it. Those few who really need it are skilled enough to write one-line-shell-script themselves. :)

> Also, constantly running a second X server on tty1 wastes memory.

Yeah, about 10-15 MB. If that's too much you can replace `zenity` with console `dialog` and run similar script instead of getty. Unlike Windows there're lots of options. :)