Why change things just because you can?

I am transitioning from 16.04 to 18.04 and am finding nuances that don't make sense.

I'll pick on one that is, IMO, probably the most ridiculous, the power off sequence.

In 16.04 you went to the farthest top right corner and clicked on the power off icon and then Shut Down. (Which was already ridiculous, BTW.)

Now you have to go through the gear icon ,then choose Shut Down, then chose Shut Down again in the last popup.

What is a GOOD reason, not just a reason for this?
Why keep changing things?

1 Like

There are some GUI issues with 18.04

Making a suggestion … you can add an applet to the panel which is called Shutdown (looks like the 16.04 shutdown icon, circle with a vertical bar), and that would be one click.

@pavlos_kairis
Just looked for it in Software Boutique and no joy.
Where can I find that app?

But the point is, why?
I shouldn’t have to go to that trouble.
It didn’t need fixing.

You don’t need to go to sofware boutique, just click right mouse button on the panel and click add to panel - you will find that applet in the list.

What layout are you using? I’m using a little tweaked Mutiny and i like this decision, because there is no log out buttons in brisk menu for this layout and i do not want to add other applets for this, because they will steal space on the panels. So this power indicator is very suitable for me.

P.S. I think you write with bad intonations. If you want to give a feedback - it’s better to use non-violent language.

@brokoli

Thank you for “showing” me yet another trick in Mate. I had no idea that existed.

I am sorry I offended you or anyone. My language is not violent, IMO, only blunt.

There is a term called “ergonomics” which means the study of people’s efficiency in their working environment.

To me, the requirement to accurately position the mouse to an exact location, click, then to choose from one of 7 seven option, click, to them have to choose from one of four options, click, is beyond comprehension. It flies in the face of efficiency.

That is the whole purpose of my feedback and my title – “Why change things just because you can?” It was already bad enough, why make it worse?

The most efficient way would be to place the “gear” icon in the top right corner, so I don’t need to carefully position the mouse pointer, then have all the options in the current “gear” and the current “shut down” pop up, so I can choose the one I want and it will do it. This is not Windows, I do not need to be asked three times “are you sure”.

1 Like

Hello fey42,

I feel your pain. When I get used to doing something in a certain way, something I do OFTEN, I can execute it quickly even if it is not the most efficient process. Like many users I hate change. This shutdown “process” is minor compared to some of the other mischief which has occurred in Ubuntu over the years… Moving the Max/Min/Close buttons to the left side of the window, Unity, Gnome 3 etc.

If you want a QUICK shutdown… add a launcher to execute “sudo shutdown -h 0” and add something like this with visudo so as to not require a password

User_Alias FREE = ken
Cmnd_Alias STUFF = /usr/sbin/shutdown
FREE ALL = NOPASSWD: STUFF

That should shut the computer down almost as fast as pulling the power cord,

Ken

Thanks Ken I appreciate the tips.

My concern with no password is the one I faced when I installed 18.04 choosing no password. I couldn’t run “sudo” or get updates, they both DEMAND a password.

Your thoughts?

@fey42, your account should have a password, how did you bypass that during install? (it asks twice for the user’s password). Login to the gui w/o password is different.

If you wish to run sudo without a password that can be done with an entry in the sudoers file. It should be edited with sudo visudio which resembles vim but with some sudoers file specific syntax checking I believe. There are a lot of example out there explaining how to do this.

I wanted to run only a few specific commends in my case - on a headless server which I was using for my router, firewall, vpn box etc. The complete entry in the sudoers file was this:

User_Alias FREE = ken
Cmnd_Alias STUFF = /usr/sbin/pm-suspend, /usr/sbin/shutdown, /usr/sbin/reboot, /usr/bin/x11vnc, /usr/sbin/openvpn, /usr/sbin/ifdown, /usr/sbin/ifup, /usr/sbin/dhclient
FREE ALL = NOPASSWD: STUFF

This was cloned from a similar setup I did MANY years ago. If I recall…

FREE is a group of privileged users - in this case only me - “ken”
STUFF is a list of the commands which I wish to run which normally require escalated privileges
FREE ALL = NOASSWORD: STUFF translates to let any of the users in group FREE run any of the commands in STUFF without asking for a password (although the commands have to be prefixed with sudo). I think ALL and NOPASSWORD are the only keywords. The others I made up.

I know Ubuntu allows autologon - I have used that on a PC which I had attached to a TV as a movie player. It had no keyboard and would automatically boot to the gui and login as a low privileged user account. I could then use the mouse to select and play a movie or shut down the PC. I think I did have to assign a password for the account even though I did not use it. This was not a sudo capable account so I never tried to run a sudo command with it.

Ken

That is all so far past me I would blow everything up. I am a user, not a tinkerer. I have no desire to mess with all the hidden nuances of tweaking this and that. And then have to do it again and again as I upgrade to the next version.

Thanks for the info, Fred

I simply ignored it just like I do in Windows, but unlike Windows it came back to bite me.