Policykit, just a mess?

Themaister · 2009-04-15 10:37:26

I thought I was really annoyed at hal. The last working hal version was for me 0.5.11-4, but suddenly, after a fresh install, it wasn't that easy to find the files required to build the old hal, particularly the old config files. From 0.5.11-7 and out I haven't been able to mount anything with hal. Tried all suggestions on the wiki, etc, but to no avail. Since many apps scream after the newer hal version, it would have to been better to get the newer hal working, and when checking the PKGBUILD, I saw --enable-policykit. I've heard many rants about this program, so I disabled policykit, and rebuilt. Voila! Everything worked perfectly again, with hal 0.5.12.

Now, what good use does policykit really have with hal? I'm sure many others have had problems with hal since my arch install is pretty vanilla.

ataraxia · 2009-04-15 17:30:27

It's one of those freedesktop.org things. ConsoleKit, PolicyKit, HAL itself, Xorg hotplugging by default, changing DontZap to true by default. I can't say I'm too happy with any of their "improvements" recently.

Their mission seems to be to change the backends of many common Free Software components to benefit the "new user" or "zero configuration" kinds of distros. That doesn't look good for the future of of distros like Arch.

Ashren · 2009-04-15 17:33:05

A suckless Xorg fork?

Wilco · 2009-04-15 18:06:07

In case you have problems with HAL and Policyket edit or change /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf to look like this:

<config version="0.1">
<match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable">
<return result="yes"/>
</match>
<match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-fixed">
<return result="yes"/>
</match>
</config>

Doesn't take the fact away that hal + policykit still sucks

luciferin · 2009-04-15 18:36:50

Wilco wrote:

In case you have problems with HAL and Policyket edit or change /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf to look like this:
Doesn't take the fact away that hal + policykit still sucks

Thank you Thank you! I've been trying to figure out why I couldn't mount my internal drives, but removeable worked fine. This solved it.

kapz · 2009-04-15 20:53:44

Wilco....you DA MAN!!!!!!!!!! It solved all my problems...god after reading and doin Phd. on threads I finally got it workin...thanks man

danielomen · 2009-04-15 21:05:05

Agreed, policykit has been nothing but a pain since its arrived for me.

Out of curiosity do you not use GDM to login? I had the same problem with a console login with e17. Then found that adding ck-launch-session to my ~/.xinitrc before enlightenment_start fixed all these issues. So I no longer needed to change /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf
(Remember vaguely reading some thread here about only GDM was aware of the need to start a console kit session as all its own policy kit stuff depended on that or something)

from my ~/.xinitrc

exec ck-launch-session enlightenment_start

jondkent · 2009-04-15 21:09:37

ataraxia wrote:

It's one of those freedesktop.org things. ConsoleKit, PolicyKit, HAL itself, Xorg hotplugging by default, changing DontZap to true by default. I can't say I'm too happy with any of their "improvements" recently.
Their mission seems to be to change the backends of many common Free Software components to benefit the "new user" or "zero configuration" kinds of distros. That doesn't look good for the future of of distros like Arch.

Oh God don't get me started totally agree. And there that piece of c**p SELinux which, although different, has been another example of totally stupidity as well.

There are times when i just wanna give up and use a MAC, but then I realise I use Arch and can configure my way out of this.

cerbie · 2009-04-15 21:32:57

PolicyKit's default behavior is based on the idea that any device it sees must appear to work, but be useless to you until you su and manage it yourself (unless it's a vfat partition, because they haven't yet figured out how to screw that up). That way, it is protected from dumb users.

Maybe I'll try rebuilding hal, now...I didn't even think about that as an option.

Last edited by cerbie (2009-04-15 21:33:23)

ataraxia · 2009-04-15 22:13:59

jondkent wrote:

There are times when i just wanna give up and use a MAC, but then I realise I use Arch and can configure my way out of this.

I don't advise it. I've been on Macs for 3 years now. (My only Arch installs are VMs. I'll have real Arches again when my new hardware shows up.) The Mac platform is like Ubuntu, only more stable/reliable in the base install, and no repos to install anything extra from at all. (Fink and MacPorts are both far too old and broken to be of any real use to me.) Plus, it's weird enough that many software requires an actual porting effort to install.

hacosta · 2009-04-15 22:20:38

jondkent wrote:

I use Arch and can configure my way out of this.

That quote is golden:D

Themaister · 2009-04-15 22:53:43

Wilco wrote:

In case you have problems with HAL and Policyket edit or change /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf to look like this:
<config version="0.1">
<match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable">
<return result="yes"/>
</match>
<match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-fixed">
<return result="yes"/>
</match>
</config>
Doesn't take the fact away that hal + policykit still sucks

You saved the day After getting 0.5.12-2 slammed in (I thought rebuilding while disabling policykit would work. Oh, I was wrong!) Everything broke (even the old package I made that used to work wtf?), but this fixed things back again. Thanks alot )

It's weird. Some letters can make or break a day >_< Now, I wonder. How long time will it take before things break again? XD

Last edited by Themaister (2009-04-15 23:02:06)

R00KIE · 2009-04-16 17:31:18

Yes the above mentioned fixes do work and do give every single user in your machine the right to mount drives. But now don't forget that you may want to give just some users permission mount the drives or to shutdown/reboot the pc. Go figure, there was already a way to manage that, and quite easy too (ok as far as my limited knowledge goes it didn't make the distinction between who could just reboot and/or shutdown), now they have made a mess of it favoring gui based never know what happens behind configurations
This is just great for when the configuration gui/file goes postal and then the configuration gui refuses to touch the file and you're stuck dealing with a big mess afterwards (assuming it is a mostly gui driven distro).
I'm not very fond of the dontzap behavior change too but at least that one I can remember and edit from the cli with vi before starting X, if I remember that is .... which usually I don't until I try to zap X

vor_lord · 2009-04-17 05:15:57

Another user thanks you, Wilco. This has been making me crazy.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-15 10:37:26

Policykit, just a mess?

#2 2009-04-15 17:30:27

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#3 2009-04-15 17:33:05

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#4 2009-04-15 18:06:07

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#5 2009-04-15 18:36:50

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#6 2009-04-15 20:53:44

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#7 2009-04-15 21:05:05

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#8 2009-04-15 21:09:37

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#9 2009-04-15 21:32:57

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#10 2009-04-15 22:13:59

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#11 2009-04-15 22:20:38

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#12 2009-04-15 22:53:43

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#13 2009-04-16 17:31:18

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

#14 2009-04-17 05:15:57

Re: Policykit, just a mess?

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