First off, thanks for the discussion. However, one thing I've learned when dealing with setting defaults is this: best practice is to never use yourself as anecdotal evidence. :)
Now, instead of disabling screenlock timeouts altogether, perhaps we could find a compromise...
I agree that the default screenlock timeout of 5 minutes does seem a bit short, would anyone be averse to considering increasing this ammount to say 10 or 15 minutes? Would that help satisfy concerns that prompted this thread?
-- Rex
On 23 April 2015 at 13:55, Rex Dieter rdieter@unl.edu wrote:
First off, thanks for the discussion. However, one thing I've learned when dealing with setting defaults is this: best practice is to never use yourself as anecdotal evidence. :)
Now, instead of disabling screenlock timeouts altogether, perhaps we could find a compromise...
I agree that the default screenlock timeout of 5 minutes does seem a bit short, would anyone be averse to considering increasing this ammount to say 10 or 15 minutes? Would that help satisfy concerns that prompted this thread?
10-15 is about the standard for things like workstations dealing with clinical trials data. Shorter than this can actually make it difficult to read complex text (try reading a scientific paper on a large screen, you may well find you can go over 5 minutes between page downs if you're looking at a detail). Also, since it's come up, screen dimming/sleep is a power setting, it's possible to consider what times are appropriate for that separately to locking.
On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:55:02 +0000 Rex Dieter rdieter@unl.edu wrote:
First off, thanks for the discussion. However, one thing I've learned when dealing with setting defaults is this: best practice is to never use yourself as anecdotal evidence. :)
Now, instead of disabling screenlock timeouts altogether, perhaps we could find a compromise...
In my experience with discussions about defaults, reaching consensus regarding the best default is more an exception than a rule. The screen locking case seems a prototype example of this, and I doubt that any proposal will satisfy everyone.
My suggestion, instead, is to provide functionality to enable/disable screen locking in as trivial way as possible --- say, right-click the desktop -> choose "disable screen locking". Just like what we already have with, say, widget locking.
In that case, if anyone is too annoyed with the default to complain about it on a mailing list, while at the same time too lazy to make two trivial clicks, it's a PEBCAK problem, not sanity of the default.
That said, my general mantra for defaults is "secure everything and lock it down, let user reconfigure at their own responsibility". Like firewalls, passwordless logins, etc. But that is just my opinion, and as an experienced user I don't really care too much about the default choice, as long as it can be reconfigured to my particular usecase easily enough.
Best, :-) Marko
On 23 April 2015 at 17:01, Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:55:02 +0000 Rex Dieter rdieter@unl.edu wrote:
First off, thanks for the discussion. However, one thing I've learned when dealing with setting defaults is this: best practice is to never use yourself as anecdotal evidence. :)
Now, instead of disabling screenlock timeouts altogether, perhaps we could find a compromise...
In my experience with discussions about defaults, reaching consensus regarding the best default is more an exception than a rule. The screen locking case seems a prototype example of this, and I doubt that any proposal will satisfy everyone.
In that case, if anyone is too annoyed with the default to complain about it on a mailing list, while at the same time too lazy to make two trivial clicks, it's a PEBCAK problem, not sanity of the default.
Well, absolutely, but some questions to ask are: 1. Is the default suitable for the majority of people? 2. If people are routinely changing the default, are they all changing it in the same direction? 3. If yes to the above, is there a benefit to a minority that outweighs the inconvenience to the majority? (Bearing in mind those people could also change the default.)
Or to put it another way, why not make it two minutes? One minute? That's more secure right? My phone locks after 30 *seconds* (or at least it will when I change it back, as this is a setting I change regularly according to what I'm doing). Picking a default that will keep everyone happy is probably impossible (which is why I don't complain all the time about the clear insanity of not having that focus-follows-mouse switched on), but picking one that everyone will have to change after install needs a reason (username for example, note, I'm not saying everyone has to change to lock timeout, it sounds from this thread like there are people who don't intend to change it from 5 minutes).
If the answer to both questions 1 and 2 is no, then worth considering making it more obvious or easier to change as Marko suggests. Though IIRC the screen lock timeout is simple enough to change once you know where it is.
Another thing that I have not mentioned, is that, as far as I can remember, on KDE 4 the default is to not have an idle lock, then I don't understand why this has been changed for KDE Plasma 5
On Fri, 2015-04-24 at 12:51 +0200, Germano Massullo wrote:
Another thing that I have not mentioned, is that, as far as I can remember, on KDE 4 the default is to not have an idle lock, then I don't understand why this has been changed for KDE Plasma 5
+1
Is there in fact any rationale behind this?
poc