Bug 367886

Summary:	System password changing should be easy/easily accessible
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Simon Oosthoek <kdebugs>
Component:	general	Assignee:	David Edmundson <kde>
Status:	RESOLVED UPSTREAM
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	bshah, plasma-bugs-null
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	5.6.5
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Simon Oosthoek 2016-08-27 09:28:26 UTC

Users should be able to change their password without having to resort to the shell based "passwd" command.

My daughter (9) wanted to change her password and I thought how she could do it without typing passwd on the command prompt. I found it impossible to do via the GUI!

I looked here first:
- right mouse menu on the background
- kde menu in the taskbar
- I typed password/passwd in the alt-f2 box
- I looked on the internet and found some stuff about kdepasswd, I installed it (kubuntu 16.04), but nothing changed in the above places.
- looked in the system-settings account settings, it's possible to change the password there, but when you click on apply, it requires superuser permissions. This should not be necessary, as it's not for the passwd on the commandline.

I don't understand this at all, I think there used to be a way in the past (kde3 perhaps), but for me I always use unix commands, so I don't track this problem very well ;-)
Don't people change their passwords at all? Or not via the gui?

Reproducible: Always

Expected Results:
I expect an option to be available and clearly presented to change the password of the currently logged-in user. At least in the places I looked (background right-mouse menu, start-kde, system-settings, through alt-f2, or possibly a new interface element that makes it trivial to modify parameters about the current user. Perhaps a real "About-Me" element?

Perhaps it's a good idea to steal possible interface ideas from windows or macintosh UIs?

Comment 1 David Edmundson 2016-08-27 22:53:48 UTC

system settings -> account details -> user manager.

It's possible user-manager is not installed, in which case install it and complain to Kubuntu.

Comment 2 Simon Oosthoek 2016-08-28 07:53:54 UTC

the package "user-manager" was installed, so that isn't the solution.

My wish (I'd actually call it a bug in the overall UI experience) was and is to have changing the system password for the logged-in user be easily accessible and findable in places where users look for it.

@David, your closing as wontfix leaves me wondering weather the KDE community doesn't want people using the plasma desktop have a trouble-free experience or that you are saying that exactly what I want is already available. Or that you consider the current situation to be trouble-free regarding changing system-passwords for the logged-in user.

My wish is clearly to make it possible to change the system password from the GUI via desktop-menu, or the kde-menu or some new and (more) intuitive GUI element.

This should be possible for users without(!) superuser privileges (so no ability to provide a sudo password).

Comment 3 David Edmundson 2016-08-28 20:00:13 UTC

I think the current solution for going into system settings is fine. As you can imagine we get a lot of suggestions, if we implemented everything we'd end up with buttons everywhere.  

Note clicking the avatar in the kde-menu also loads this module.

As for the super user thing - it shouldn't be the case.

However, it seems there was a bug usptream which I've now fixed.
Fix filed: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=97518

Comment 4 Simon Oosthoek 2016-08-28 20:53:10 UTC

Thanks for the explanation and the fix!

Cheers,

Simon