[H-GEN] Desktop wars ..... (no not really)

[Robert Brockway]

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On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Christopher Biggs wrote:

> If I may jump in (since I hope for Robert's sake that he's sound
> asleep just now), I happen to use a similar scheme myself.  What's

Yes, I was :)

> Therefore to get a login on Robert's system, you need not only to
> correctly enter his username and password, but to correctly enter his
> SSH passphrase.  This arrangement also has the not inconsequential
> side effect of priming the SSH agent to deliver that passphrase to SSH
> instances when required, providing a "single sign-on" environment).
>
> If the user then types, say "ssh someothermachine.some.domain", they
> will get an SSH connection without having to re-type their SSH
> passphrase (assuming they have a valid account on the destination).

On my window manager drop-down menus I have a list of boxes that I can ssh
to.  All of these, as well as the local box appear under a single
drop-down called "shells".  If I move the mouse pointer over the name of
one of these boxes and release the mouse button, I'll get a secure session
on the remote system without having had to type so much as a single letter
on the keyboard.  This is extremely convenient when you're often working
on many different systems as I am.

> On /my/ system I also have configured the screen-saver/locker daemon
> erase the stored passphrase, should I be idle for longer than 10
> minutes.  I can also press the "sleep" key on my keyboard to wipe my
> stored passphrase (and also lock the console) immediately.

I used to have "Right mouse button click" on the root window lock my
display.  I refer to this as the "anti-cat feature" since it is good to
have a very fast way to lock the display if you may have cats walking over
your keyboard[1] when you're not present.  I now use the same combination
but with the ctrl key pressed[2].

[1] Keyboards feel great under your paws.  Just ask any cat if you don't
believe me.

[2] Right mouse button click on the root window now brings up FvwmPager.
This was one of my recent changes to the fvwm2 config (see other thread :)
Previously I had it on the display at all times but I now feel this was a
waste of valuable screen real estate.  The FvwmPager is an fvwm2 plugin
which provides a miniature display of the virtual desktops that are setup.
FvwmPager provides a way to go to all of the virtual desktops in use and
to move windows between virtual desktops (among other functions).

Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert at timetraveller.org  ICQ: 104781119
Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org)
"The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah

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