On Tue, 2006-05-09 at 00:31, Tim wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-05-09 at 00:20 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> > Why install a multiuser OS if only one user will ever use
> > it?
>
> Because the system runs some services as other users, not yourself.
> Even if you ran a system as one personal user and one system user, it's
> still a multi-user system, and once the mechanism is in place, you may
> as well provide the ability to have more than one user. Having users is
> one way of separating what a person should normally be able to do, and
> what they should normally being prevented from doing.
>
> Or were you being facetious?
I was hoping that someone would catch on that it is not
unusual to actually use a multiuser OS for multiple users
on one machine, in which case the person installing may
in fact have a reason to install different mail user agents,
word processors and so on, because they will be the
preferred choice for different users.
And as a side effect to point out that it is no more
wasteful to have the multiple application choices available
than it is to have a multiuser OS serving a single user.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
