Display of system users: Selecting the face

[Oswald Buddenhagen]

On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 03:22:53AM +0200, Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> So there seems not be to be some broader standard for the typical size of a 
> face.
>
yup :(

> As the faces are about to be used like icons the typical sizes from 22 
> to 128 should be supported.
>
yeah ... at larger resolutions, 48² is ridiculously small ...

> This could be done by downscaling from one given picture with the
> largest size needed, like 140x140 or 300x300.
>
no way this is going to work:
- slow. oh, well, on-demand loading would help - hmm, actually, the user
  list should do this anyway.
- downscaling a big image by such a factor makes it almost certainly
  unrecognizable

> Enabling users to provide their own face as a file in their home dir works 
> with display managers. They usually are run with superuser rights (or have 
> some helper demons which are), so they can access all files.
>
while kdm currently has code that setuids to the owner of the image, a
comment (i mean, _a comment_ - in _my_ code!! :) clearly indicates that it
is supposed to run as nobody. actually, i could/should change this right
away - no need for the entire greeter to run as nobody for this.
ergo, inaccessible image -> no image - without exceptions

> * E.g. by taking them from the address book.
> 
that's no option for kdm anyway as long as there is no desktop-agnostic
address book standard.

> But might this put danger on security? What if someone manipulated
> one's addressbook and therefore the system displays the wrong person?
>
you can do this with the .faces as well. that's one of the reasons why
the *Admin* variants still exist.

> User given faces might be used if the files are readable to other user
> and allowed to be used.
> In fact we rip out the controlling of faces from the display manager
>
yes, but consider the distinction between the *Admin* and *User*
variants.

> and plant it to the user management
>
this already exists to some extent.

> (there are other things that should follow BTW).
> 
please elaborate.

> 2. Fallback icons:
> For users with no own face two fallback faces are used:

> First the one of the primary group the user is in (e.g. users),
>
eek, yet another variant ...
where to store this image? who is allowed to change it?

> 5. Support for LDAP etc.:
> 
danimo wanted to force me into adding this ages ago, but without success
so far. :))))

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