On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 04:19:52PM -0500, David Zeuthen wrote:
I don't consider date/time to be "end user". That should be managed through ntp, which shouldn't be just tweaked at the whim of whoever sits down at the box. (Setting the *user's* timezone is a different issue.)
You need to be able to change timezone when traveling. User may also not be on a network so you cannot rely on a NTP server.
You shouldn't have to change the *system* timezone, though.
$ echo $TZ America/New_York $ date Thu Mar 3 16:34:40 EST 2005 $ export TZ=Japan $ date Fri Mar 4 06:35:17 JST 2005
Personally, I think the system timezone should *always* be GMT, and local time always set per-user. (There could be a system default TZ, of course.) But that's a different discussion. :)
o Why should installing updates and software that is *signed* by a key that the admin chooses to trust require root?
Because it could affect other users in unpredictable ways.
o IIRC you can already install "software" as a non-privileged user for e.g. Firefox - my point is that there is more to installing software than just RPM
Right -- that's okay, because privilege separation reduces the possible impact on others.