device-automounter moved to kdereview

[Andrew Dorrell]

On Thursday 20 August 2009 9:16:37 pm Will Stephenson wrote:
> On Monday 17 August 2009 10:40:21 Sven Burmeister wrote:
> > If multi-user environments are really that much trouble and not the
> >  exception to the rule of computer usage, then the solution would be to
> >  enable KDE to know when more than one user is logged in and suspend
> >  automounting only in that case by default.
>
> Optionally build device-automounter using ConsoleKit and automount only
> when the plug event arrives at the active local user's session (this is the
> assumption you currently have, don't automount if C-K is not available or
> otherwise.

The most common multi-user use case is now the one where multiple users are 
logged in but only one user is active.  Quite different to *nix origins!  
There is a dinstinct difference for the case of multiple simultaneous users 
accessing a machine via remote consoles.  In this case the physical 
circumstance suggests that none of them "own" the machine and that some sort 
of extra priviledge would be required to mount or unmount devices.

In the single shared console case priviledge is inferred by being at the 
console of the machine - being the active user.  Thus the most intuitive 
behaviour is for the active user to "own" the system (context of automounting 
at least).  

As far as practical it should be invisible to the active user that any other 
users are logged in to the machine.  This includes access to pluggable 
devices.  Sensible protections are required.  The active user probably 
shouldn't be able to eject media that another user has opened files for 
writing on (or if they can the system needs to be able to deal with it 
gracefully - this would be preferable IMHO).  But having to switch user just 
to eject a usb stick stretches the patience of typical users (in my 
experience)