Hi, I do not know English, write through a translator, so I apologize in advance if something is not clear. I would like to offer you a number of improvements that, in my opinion, will make Budgie better:
The background of the login window (when the PC is turned on) is visible only when the background itself is in /usr/share/backgrounds. If the background is in /home/username/Pictures, only the selected background color is displayed. I think that those who do not know this may have problems.
As for me, an important addition is more settings in the volume menu. The problem is that there are a lot more settings in the side menu, and in the sound menu you can only change the volume. Not convenient.
Add more “AppIndicator Applet” settings. I would like to be able to change the distance between the icons, as well as change their size.
I, and probably many others, have the use case of switching audio devices fairly frequently (headphones, multiple desktop speakers outputs, etc) and it would be really nice if the audio bar applet had the option to select that, the way MacOS and even Win11 do.
In my opinion, this means that the audio applet can be completely removed from the system. Why do I need it if all the settings are in the side menu? Or let all the sound settings be in the audio applet, as it should be.
It’s just that I find it rather funny that when the user first starts Budgie, he will see 2 identical sound settings in different applets
Ideally the « personal » backgrounds pictures should sit in $HOME/.local/share/backgrounds
You may create a symlink to that folder in $HOME/Pictures/ named ‘My Backgrounds’ for convenience.
The whole path to $HOME/.local/share/backgrounds/* ( and so its content ) should show rwxr-x-r-x permissions in order for lightdm accessing your pictures. Something like :
chmod -Rc o+rX $HOME/.local/share/backgrounds/*
should do the trick.
Or maybe easier add the ( system ) user lightdm to the group of your own user :
sudo adduser lightdm $USER
which also should do the trick.
I’d say that second method is safer - since it does not modify the permissions on folders and files in your $HOME.
will create a visiblesymlink in your « Pictures » folder, to the hidden « backgrounds » folder .
Both ( adduser + symlink ) to be done in each session, if many ( human ) users involved.
In other sessions, just use same commands, thanks to the $VARIABLES
Maybe the lightdm-screen graphical utility should automatically add user lightdm to $USER’s group once « display user’s background » option is enabled ?
This utility is run as admin so it should be able to do that.
That sounds from a security point of view not a good idea. Changing someones security posture should be a conscious decision by the user not a hidden fact. Multiple users with the same rights is a security attack vector
So, in case you want to use the « display user’s desktop » offered by lightdm, what is the safest way ?
I mean this particular option is what makes lightdm more interesting than other session managers.
1⋅ put pictures in /usr/share/backgrounds can’t be the answer since that particular option of lightdm aims at showing the user’s background picture which is actually set in user’s session most often through $HOME/.local/share/backgrounds ( depending on how the user set his⋅her background picture, budgie-control-center or else ) ;
2⋅ by default since 21.10 or 22.04, $HOME and its content is rwxr-x— which prevents any other user from reading, hence lightdm with that particular option won’t show anything but the background color.
One possibility is to chmod 755 the whole path to the personal background pictures, but then anyone might access those files ;
3⋅ other possibility is to add lightdm to $USER’s group without modifying modes on personal files. Only $USER and lightdm ( as group member of $USER ) will access the needed files to display as backgrounds. No one else. And lightdm being a system-user run at start I can’t see when it’s unsafe ?
So 3⋅ sounds much safer to me than 2⋅ which « opens » access to any user.
3⋅ is not at all :
… it’s only $USER ( as owner and group ) accessing righteously his⋅her own files.
2⋅ is « Multiple users with the same rights » since 755 means the whole world can read.
During the Unity era which used lightdm $HOME was then in 755 so lightdm was able to access personal background pictures.
Probably lightdm will need to support something like xdg-desktop-portal which sandboxed apps like flatpaks and snaps use to securely obtain user based data.
