Re: Cover removable-media permissions in hand book

 
Hi Thimothy  
>Понедельник, 8 сентября 2025, 19:21 +03:00 от Timothy Gaskell <tngaskell@gmail.com>:
> 
>Dear FreeBSD documentation whizzes,
> 
>I've only been daily-driving FreeBSD for a little less than a year, so I'm not knowledgeable enough to be writing documentation, but from the perspective of someone who has encountered and overcome beginners' problems, I have a suggestion that I think will help smooth the way for others: 
> 
>Chapter 8 of the FreeBSD handbook, which covers installing desktop environments, should also cover setting up some basic device permissions most desktop users want (or refer them to a different chapter for this if more appropriate).
> 
>At present following the instructions to install KDE in section 8.2 results in a system where you have a graphical file manager but cannot use it to mount and unmount CDs, DVDs, and thumb drives -- actions that are deservedly privileged but that many desktop users need and expect to be able to do. I imagine the steps for other desktops have the same issue.
> 
>Users such as myself with existing experience in some other UNIX-like environment will correctly guess that the missing features are due to permissions they haven't set up, but they won't know which permissions or which man pages to look at. KDE in particular requires not just appropriate permissions set in /dev/ but also entries added to a config file for polkit -- a subject the Handbook currently does not cover at all.
> 
>Adding a how-to for this common task will both rescue the user experience for people not yet deep enough into the technical world to immediately think, "I should Google for some arcane config entry that fixes this," and encourage people to follow actual best practices like giving enhanced privileges to administrative groups like operator or wheel rather than just removing all security guardrails on removable media.
> 
 
 
Can you shortly write, what information is desirable to include into this additional HOWTO?
What troubles you met and how you solved them?
 
Best regards,
 
Vladlen Popolitov