Re: strange execute-command-as dialog pops up

(erk)

On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:35 PM, Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> wrote:

Joel Rees wrote:
> After the reboot, I decided to install the flashrom package, and after the
> install finishes, I find in front of me what appears to be an
> execute-command-as dialog.
>
> No command. User selection popup list showing root.
>
> I assume it's the execute-as dialog, but I don't recall doing anything to
> get the dialog, so it's strange to see it. (Maybe my fingers moving by
> themselves when I find I can't stay awake?)

This sounds like Bug#708548. This thread on debian-devel is
concerning this problem.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/06/msg00341.html

No resolution yet. But it is a big problem because it is training
people to fall prey to phishing attacks.

Bob

Thanks for the link. I can see that gdm3 is still evil.

But I should note that the dialog I got there was not the root/admin password prompt being appropriately disparaged in that bug report. It looked kind of like the "Execute command" dialog that you often find in the desktop manager.

Except that it had a popup menu for selecting the user to run as.

And the dialog was not very wide, so the blank for the command didn't really inspire one to enter a long chell command.

Very confusing. At first I thought it was a clumsy password trap, and was wondering what I had run in my admin account to let something like that in. I don't connect to the general web, don't run anything that shouldn't need admin privileges in that account.

But on looking more closely, I recognized that, at least in the dialog presented, it was prompting for a command, not a password, and that where it was saying root was in a popup list. So I concluded that it was a poorly designed generalized run-as dialog. Can't find any menu entry that I might have dragged it up from, I don't recall running a command from the shell that might have brought it up.

And I didn't think to take a screen shot of it. Am I getting old, or am I just distracted?

Maybe I should win the lottery so I can afford to write a decent *dm for XFCE.

I see that I am still confusing the display manager with the desktop manager.

(I think the gnome project is confused about that, too. :-/ )

So, alternatives to gdm3 include

kdm (pulling in all of that),
lightdm (another gnome project),
slim (which is the one I was using before, but was removed during upgrade),

wdm (afterstep fun stuff),

ldm (properly tunneled, in theory, need to look at that),

and xdm (a bit too light for modern tastes).

And I need to get one of those installed and set up and kick gdm3 to the curb. Probably slim again for now.

(sigh)

--
Joel Rees