Window managers alternatives (was Re: [svlug] StarOFfice to b

[dfox@belvdere.vip.best.com]

> It seems a viable solution for something I have long since been trying to
> work out, a method to allow x-conections to happen in a diald fashion, eg if
> I start a program that needs X it startup X run the program and exit back

I don't think it's feasible to start up and shut down X every time a
program or service needs it. But I'm not quite sure that's something you're
looking to do.

> manager (I have some Ideas on how to pull that off, but nothing beyond
> play-theories yet) a graphicall login, and a graphicall shell - none of

ISTR some graphical setups that didn't nowhere need the resources that
X does back in the early days of Linux. They never caught on though.

> the reall shell below is pretty easy, trouble is that you will need to get
> beyond the root-for-graphics problem, you cannot have users type commands
> and then have those executed by a program with root access methinks.

Well, you can make a program suid root, which acts mostly as an 
unpriviledged task most of the time, but goes into 'root' mode whenever
it needs to access a crucial resource. This can be useful, but is also
a security risk. The majority of user processes don't need to do any
'root' access whatsoever - that's why the OS is there, and why (for
instance) files have permission bits, and so forth.