[ConsoleKit] Lack of man pages and other documentation

[Daniel Levine]

For the average Ubuntu user, consolekit isn't even visible. GDM starts it, it gives the user the privileges for power management and volume mounting, and that's it. And this is how things should be. The desktop just works.

But for a more experienced user who starts X from the command line, there are currently all kinds of problems. ck-launch-session often doesn't give the necessary rights to everything, or just flat-out doesn't work. Workarounds based on polkit tend to be hackish and/or hard to find. Support for group-based authentication still isn't there, as far as I can tell. Documentation is quite literally nonexistant. It used to be that you could add a user to the plugdev group, make sure HAL was running, and poof, Thunar's volume manager would work just fine; now, with the current, more advanced system, such conveniences are harder to achieve for those who want a more minimal desktop.

I do think this is a problem. IMO a smooth desktop experience needs to include both end users and power users. Consolekit works fine for end users right now, but for more experienced users, the lack of a *well-documented* command line interface makes things a real pain.

I think the main problem, right now, is documentation. ck-launch-session needs a man page, so that people can use it properly, and not end up scratching their heads when it mysteriously fails to create an active session. Polkit could also do with some documentation on how to create permanent policy changes for users or for various actions (as opposed to changes in the main XML files in /usr/share, which will just get overwritten on update). Support for group authentication would be nice, but I think lack of documentation is *the* problem right now.

I'm sorry if I come off as rude here BTW. I'm just a bit exasperated by consolekit's complete lack of documentation, and my inability to get it working properly. IMHO, software as essential for the desktop as consolekit just needs to be well documented.
 		 	   		  
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