Re: [BLUG] Trick for picture sets in Pictures Folder screensaver

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 04:48:05PM +0000, Mark Krenz wrote:
> So in the Pictures directory you may have a directory for family
> pictures, one for pictures of airplanes, one for pictures of space and
> so on. Just made all the directories mode 000 and then set the
> directory that you are in the mood for to 755.

<gnome-bashing>
While I do not doubt this is a very useful trick, in my mind this just
helps reinforce the idea that the GNOME ultra-lack of preferences does
nothing to actually increase the usability of GNOME or of Linux. It
makes me glad to use KDE, where even the "blank" screensaver has a
useful configuration option (the color to blank to).
</gnome-bashing>

I wanted to add that if you're inexperienced, playing with permissions
can create problems. (Shoot, even knowledgeable, trained professionals
sometimes seriously shoot themselves in the foot by playing with
permissions.)

It is one reason I think anyone using a primary group of 'users'
for their user community needs to rethink things. It is easier to
maintain security by using a umask of 002, using an individual
primary group, and using g+s on folders containing shared-group
content. (This is referred to as "User Private Groups (UPG)". See
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1994/03/msg00105.html for why Debian
made this the default for their distribution.)

Any solution which doesn't involve changing permissions is generally
better than one that does.

Cheers,

--
Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> / KeyID: 8596FA8E
Fingerprint: 108C 089C EFA4 832C BF07 78C2 DE71 5433 8596 FA8E