Come to think of it, I can do without disk encryption as it will only slow my environment down…
With all the multi-user/multi-session interest, I’d like to drop in my $.02 and mention that it should be possible to have more than one session open (i.e. with multiple monitors/keyboard/mouse) all without using passwords.
Imagine a beautiful scene with a father & daughter both using the same Haiku instance, but programming on the same project…why bother with passwords amidst innocence.
Or, imagine playing a game without needing to run it over the wireless, but on the same machine.
As long as you don´t need any other inconvenient thing in place of passwords, like biometric, or 2FA, or whatever.
Depending on the application, one can open two of the same application and work with them in diferent displays, provided the OS suports them, of course.
If not a password, what alternative option are you going to use to decrypt your disk/data?
Almost any other option would likely require some additional complex software infrastructure just to use such a feature.
In my opinion the iPhone is not a very good model of general computing devices, because it’s effectively a closed platform that is locked down pretty tight. Never mind that it’s operating system, APIs etc are developed and maintained solely by a corporate entity which can enforce things being done to a standard and tested thoroughly. You have to jailbreak it to install any software Apple hasn’t reviewed and approved.
I just wanted to express my disdain for passwords, and realize now that I didn’t express my appreciation for how Haiku does not require a password at all. I would like that to still be an option moving forward.
Excuse me, but what the uck-fay. I understand that Haiku isn’t built for multi-seat setups (what used to be called mainframes back in the day, where eleventy million people were logged in at once). That’s a UNIX use case, and absolutely shouldn’t be something Haiku is targeted towards. And of course, Haiku isn’t built for server setups either, where services/daemons each have their own fake user. One user per user is fine.
But think of, say, a multimedia production environment, where there’s That One ThinkStation that everybody and their dog takes turns sitting in front of. Sure, one user at a time, but each of these users should have the right to his own “Documents” folder, his own “Pictures” folder, his own “Videos” folder, his own desktop wallpaper, and his own screensaver. And there shouldn’t be any danger of having your toes stepped on by your fellow lusers.
If I own a house, with roommates, we all have a key to the front door, but we also each have our own bedroom, with a door that locks, and just because I’m doin’ the five-knuckle shuffle in my bedroom doesn’t mean that my roommate can’t cook in the kitchen (at the same time, or not).
That’s all that “multi-user support” signifies, or should signify. If you all imagine that I’m one of those people using that ThinkStation, there’s really no reason for me to give one-tenth of a bumblebee’s fart about “elevated privileges”, “root”, “wheel”, “sudo”, all that nonsense, unless I’m the sysadmin, and the question of whether a multimedia operating system needs a sysadmin is for a different discussion.
Sure, if your primary fear is unintentional destruction of data by another luser. What about unintentional access of data (aka, ~/n0rp/)? What about intentional destruction of data (whether the other luser actually intends to destroy it, or just to change it to suit his preference as opposed to yours)?
True security from snooping or destruction by a motivated and malicious remote actor (which is what “cybersecurity” has become largely synonymous with today) is a whole other kettle of fish, and really deserves its own thread, not co-opting “multi-user support”. I’m talking about preventing the average office idiot from accessing your files.
All the capabilities that allow you to do the latter, will also allow you to do the former—unless the OS is specifically written to prohibit multi-seat, which I don’t think it should be. But we certainly don’t need to prioritise remote access/multi-seat; in fact, we should explicitly discourage this. If someone wants to make a multi-seat setup, they should consider UNIX, which was written specifically for that use case.
It’s true, nowadays is basic in every Windows / Linux version to have the possibility of creating multiple users for a PC, each one with their own configuration (more advisable if several people in a home share the PC). I think that should definitely be implemented in Haiku.
