[633] in athena10
"Other Options" xlogin button
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan Reed)
Tue Dec 2 14:26:18 2008
Message-Id: <D9C47A60-7046-450C-B87E-083439A9B0C4@mit.edu>
From: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>
To: athena10@mit.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v919.2)
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 14:25:33 -0500
This is related to Quentin's thread about gdm, but because it's a
policy discussion and not a technical one, I chose to start a new
thread.
Bill and I talked about the buttons today, and we took a look under
"Other Options"
- xcluster (arguably still useful)
- library access (Barton telnet hasn't worked in years)
- Workstation information (no one uses it, and athinfo provides the
same information)
- MITVMA login (desupport)
- moira (namespace) - desupport, people can use webmoira or login for
chpobox
- Shut down window system, aka Ctrl-P (can be useful)
- 8 bit mode (which is only needed for arcane Sun software, so it
should go away)
There's also the "Register for an Account" button, which arguably has
a higher priority over things in the Other Options menu.
I propose one of the following:
a) Set up buttons to run custom commands for xcluster and account
registration. We only include them in debathena-cluster, and we force
DISPLAY to :0.0 under the assumption that cluster hardware will only
ever have one display.
b) Eliminate buttons completely, and re-enable the old "register"
account to allow people to register that way.
c) Create a single button that runs a browser in "kiosk mode" (defined
however we want), and thus allows people to run the reg applet, access
the cluster map, access barton, and do all sorts of neat stuff.
It's important to note that we (OLC, Accounts) would like some method
of account registration to be available from an Athena workstation. A
problem we frequently encounter is that someone cannot use the
registration applet because of browser incompatibilities, Java
incompatibilities, or other problems. The easiest answer to that
problem is "Go find an Athena workstation", since we know that the reg
applet on a workstation always works, and it takes much less time than
sorting out weird Java problems on Windows.
-Jon
