LXDE without polkit

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 7:25 pm Post subject: LXDE without polkit

Continued from https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1119841-highlight-.html

figueroa · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 7:42 pm Post subject:

I don't think polkit is the problem, or even a problem. I think LXDE (probably lxsession) runs lxpolkit which spawns polkitd. It's part of what makes things work as expected.
_________________
Andy Figueroa
hp pavilion hpe h8-1260t/2AB5; spinning rust x3
i7-2600 @ 3.40GHz; 16 gb; Radeon HD 7570
amd64/23.0/split-usr/desktop (stable), OpenRC, -systemd -pulseaudio -uefi

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 9:38 pm Post subject:

How are you starting X, ie what's in your .xinitrc file?

As far as polkit goes, the main thing it's used for is to let the shutdown/reboot (whatever it's called) work for a normal user, at least that's what I remember, but it's been over 5 years since I've used xfce, so just going on my (possibly faulty) memory. :lol:

Edit to add: just downloaded the source for lxsession, they've changed a lot since I used it.

It's not that hard to put together a reasonable desktop using openbox, with something like tint or lxpanel and something like pcmanfm.
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PRIME x570-pro, 3700x, 6.1 zen kernel
gcc 13, profile 17.0 (custom bare multilib), openrc, wayland

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 10:08 pm Post subject:

I run xdm. The session script installed by lxde launches lxde-session-manager which I didn't emerge. lxpanel does run in openbox. I wasn't impressed with the default.
I might have to scour the code to see where it uses polkit and patch it out. Yet Another Project

Or just accept polkit which I've managed to avoid for what? 14 years?

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 10:18 pm Post subject:

You should be able to tell xdm to just start openbox directly, and from openbox autostart whatever else you want, like a panel (I liked tint2 better than lxpanel), pcmanfm (desktop icons)
_________________
PRIME x570-pro, 3700x, 6.1 zen kernel
gcc 13, profile 17.0 (custom bare multilib), openrc, wayland

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:42 pm Post subject:

Yes, Anon-E-moose, I did do that, but I don't like the looks. But starting pure lxde died because I didn't build lxde-session.
I would continue with Mate but it also needs polkit or elogind or pam or some other seat manger. I only have one seat.

figueroa · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:48 pm Post subject:

In my case, all of the above.

On my main desktop I'm currently using lightdm.

On my old x86 desktop mainly just doing server duties it's usually not logged in but otherwise I use .xinitrc:

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:51 pm Post subject:

The last line of /etc/X11/Sessions/lxde is

Tony0945 · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 12:10 am Post subject:

Definition of Terms

A seat consists of all hardware devices assigned to a specific workplace. It consists of at least one graphics device, and usually also includes keyboard, mouse. It can also include video cameras, sound cards and more. Seats are identified by seat names, which are short strings (<= 64chars), that start with the four characters "seat" followed by at least one more character from the range a-zA-Z0-9, "_" and "-". They are suitable for inclusion in file names. Seat names may or may not be stable and may be reused if a seat becomes available again.
A session is defined by the time a user is logged in until he logs out. A session is bound to one or no seats (the latter for 'virtual' ssh logins). Multiple sessions can be attached to the same seat, but only one of them can be active, the others are in the background. A session is identified by a short string. systemd ensures that audit sessions are identical to systemd sessions, and uses the audit session id as session id in systemd (if auditing is enabled). The session identifier too shall be considered a short string (<= 64chars) consisting only of a-zA-Z0-9, "_" and "-", suitable for inclusion in a file name. Session IDs are unique on the local machine and are never reused as long as the machine is online.
A user (the way we know it on Unix) corresponds to the person using a computer. A single user can have opened multiple sessions at the same time. A user is identified by a numeric user id (UID) or a user name (string).
A multi-session system allows multiple user sessions on the same seat at the same time. Linux+systemd qualifies.
A multi-seat system allows multiple independent seats that can be individually and simultaneously used by different users. Linux+systemd qualifies.

Did I read this wrong? A multi-seat machine has multiple users on the same hardware.
I do sometimes have multiple sessions on one machine, but there is only one user (me!) using the hardware.

figueroa · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:36 am Post subject:

Tony0945: why are you asking? Unix/Linux is a multi-user OS. In other words, one running OS can have multiple concurrent logins from the same or different users.

The snippet you quoted is exclusive to systemd. I think you need a different thread.
_________________
Andy Figueroa
hp pavilion hpe h8-1260t/2AB5; spinning rust x3
i7-2600 @ 3.40GHz; 16 gb; Radeon HD 7570
amd64/23.0/split-usr/desktop (stable), OpenRC, -systemd -pulseaudio -uefi

Tony0945 · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:46 am Post subject:

Supposedly polkit or elogind or systemd are needed for a multi-seat system. Yes, several seats could logon to my systems. But they won't, because I am the last one standing with a password. So why do I need "kits". I didn't even have them (nor dbus) when my grandkids were here (Gnome 2 days). I don't like installing murky needless software. I'm very leery of Zoom. I did have pam until a few months ago.

Tony0945 · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:53 am Post subject:

figueroa · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 3:13 am Post subject:

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 9:26 am Post subject:

Tony0945 · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 1:55 pm Post subject:

To: Anon-E-moose:
Yes, I had access to the Mate menu. And I recalled that i can end the session by something like "killall openbox <something>" But I didn't remember the exact incantation. Also, I could just run the latest Mate with all it's jits and just surrender to systemd. I also could just install Ubuntu but then I would be stuck with a Win 8 interface and have to prefix everything command line with "sudo". Or just installl Windows. I think you can still get an XP looking Shell.
But if I did either of those, it wouldn't be mine.

To: Figuroa:
"Unless you build it yourself, isn't most software "murky?" " Building it from the ground up was how I made my living, and I enjoyed my job very much.
And "No", it wasn't murky until large corporations decided to make it murky so they could make money on "support".

figueroa · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:10 pm Post subject:

If it's installed, /usr/bin/lxsession-logout gives a nice logout. /usr/bin/lxsession-logout is provided by lxsession. lxsession does not run during an OpenBox session. lxsession-logout is what is in the default OpenBox menu.

FYI - polkitd is started by LXDE, XFCE, and OpenBox, and none of them kill polkitd upon exiting. :-(

_________________
Andy Figueroa
hp pavilion hpe h8-1260t/2AB5; spinning rust x3
i7-2600 @ 3.40GHz; 16 gb; Radeon HD 7570
amd64/23.0/split-usr/desktop (stable), OpenRC, -systemd -pulseaudio -uefi

GDH-gentoo · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 9:05 pm Post subject:

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 9:15 pm Post subject:

Don't use the meta package, if you don't want polkit/session

This is what the lxde-meta package will pull in

GDH-gentoo · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 9:37 pm Post subject:

figueroa · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 10:42 pm Post subject:

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 10:48 pm Post subject:

Etal · Veteran Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 1931

Polkit is dbus-activated.

Try

figueroa · Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 1:52 am Post subject:

figueroa · Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 2:02 am Post subject:

Etal · Veteran Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 1931

"/zzz" is nothing valid, I just needed some dbus path in order to call the command. Calling the service org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1 causes dbus to bring up polkit (/usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.service)

The reason it doesn't exit with the DE is because it's a system service, it's not running as your user. UDisks is similar.