Doesn't the GECOS field already cover some of this use case?

Posted Dec 7, 2024 10:18 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
In reply to: Doesn't the GECOS field already cover some of this use case? by khim
Parent article: Debian opens a can of username worms

I would like to reiterate that I was specifically thinking of logging in at the console, since (as I mentioned) the GUIs are already displaying the GECOS field (which supports full Unicode) in an interactive picker, at least under most reasonable configurations. I do not understand how you're going to get very far at the command line if you can't type in ASCII.

Doesn't the GECOS field already cover some of this use case?

Posted Dec 7, 2024 10:59 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

You wouldn't. Obviously people who couldn't type ASCII wouldn't ever do (and don't plan to do) anything in the command line.

That's fine, the majority of computer users don't ever use command line and are not interested in the command line (many don't even know it exists).

But even for them using non-ASCII letters in the $HOME is PITA. Simply because programs stop working – and changing $HOME temporarily brings another layer of pain.