I honestly donât know how to think about this. On one hand, itâs pretty cool that more and more users are giving the finger to Microsoft and switch to Linux.
On the other hand, Linux systems are gonna become a bigger target for cyberattacks or malware. I realise that I, as a regular person who isnât on dodgy porn sites all day, probably have nothing to fear but still, I like my Linux lightweight and if they have to slap some antivirus on there⌠eh idk
Donât fret! 95+% all servers on the internet run Linux so the attack vector has been there for ages. Follow best practices and your risk will remain low!
Unfortunately thereâs a lot more to it than that.
Youâre right that the âback endâ of Linux systems tend to be quite hardened.
Itâs the desktop environments that are a concern when it comes to security hardening, IMO. Almost all servers have no DE installed so itâs not something enterprise has cared about.
How much effort has been put into security on DEs? I honestly have no idea, but so far there hasnât been an enormous pressure to security harden them.
Shit, look at:
X11. Itâs insecure by design, yet most distros still ship with it (understandably, since Wayland isnât 100% yet).
packaged software runs as root during the whole installation period - this means that anything slipped into the install script will have full root privileges to do anything to your system. Flatpak does fix this, but normally-packaged software is still abundant.
any non-root program can change aliases in your bashrc or bash_aliases file. I.e. they can change âapt installâ to some other nefarious command, or to point to a dodgy software repository, so that next time the user types âsudo apt install [XYZ]â, it downloads malware or does other nasty things.
Iâm absolutely clueless about this stuff and I can come up with those potential attack vectors in seconds. Imagine what a proficient hacker could do, or a hostile nation-state.
I definitely think improvements will have to be made in terms of security, and weâre no doubt going to hear more about malware in the coming years. But itâs not an insurmountable problem, IMO. Distros and DEs will just take time to adapt.
X11. Itâs insecure by design, yet most distros still ship with it (understandably, since Wayland isnât 100% yet).
This is a bit overhyped.
packaged software runs as root during the whole installation period - this means that anything slipped into the install script will have full root privileges to do anything to your system. Flatpak does fix this, but normally-packaged software is still abundant.
WTF? Things that run as root, do. Things that donât, donât. Obviously most things donât.
any non-root program can change aliases in your bashrc or bash_aliases file. I.e. they can change âapt installâ to some other nefarious command, or to point to a dodgy software repository, so that next time the user types âsudo apt install [XYZ]â, it downloads malware or does other nasty things.
For your own user, so what?
EDIT:
But itâs not an insurmountable problem, IMO. Distros and DEs will just take time to adapt.
Actually it is. One can make levels over levels of isolation, sandboxes and more sandboxes, but in the end conscious hygiene matters most.
Under X11, any program of any kind can see the contents of another program.
Under X11, any program of any kind can see all your keypresses, whether the app is focussed, unfocused, minimised, on another virtual desktop. Anything.
Under X11, any program can inject keypresses into any other program.
Under X11, any program of any kind can access your clipboard.
And it doesnât even take root privileges. Thatâs just the default.
The X11 system itself runs as root, though. And this opens the door for privilege escalation exploits.
Thatâs before we even consider the devs themselves saying that the complexity, decades of spaghetti code, and unfixable bugs make it virtually impossible to patch.
X11 is a security nightmare of epic proportions. An absolutely cataclysmically insecure system. And itâs one of the main reasons that X11 devs abandoned it for Wayland.
WTF? Things that run as root, do. Things that donât, donât. Obviously most things donât.
I never said that things that donât run as root run as root. That doesnât make sense, itâs self contradictory.
What I said was that install scripts for repo packages always run as root. And therefore anything that makes its way into the script will be executed with root privileges. That is a risk.
For your own user, so what?
What do you mean, âso whatâ?! A non-root program being able to highjack system commands and even gain root access isnât âso whatâ, itâs a glaring security hole.
Actually it is. One can make levels over levels of isolation, sandboxes and more sandboxes, but in the end conscious hygiene matters most.
Youâre right, but youâre taking my words there a little too literally there.
When I say the problems arenât insurmountable I mean âwith effort, a lot of these will be fixed and your system will be pretty secureâ, not âone day Linux systems will literally be unhackable, and no exploit or security issue will ever be found again. Security problems will be a thing of the past.â
The X11 system itself runs as root, though. And this opens the door for privilege escalation exploits.
It usually does, but it doesnât have to.
Thatâs before we even consider the devs themselves saying that the complexity, decades of spaghetti code, and unfixable bugs make it virtually impossible to patch.
And the new thing to replace that is still not good enough after 10 years or so.
I said that install scripts for repo packages always run as root. And therefore anything that makes its way into the script will be executed with root privileges. That is a risk.
Letâs please not extrapolate the problems of your distribution to all of them.
What do you mean, âso whatâ?! A non-root program being able to highjack system commands and even gain root access isnât âso whatâ, itâs a glaring security hole.
Your user may set aliases for the shell of your user, and the program\script ran by your user can do that.
Itâs not a security hole at all. Itâs something you should be able to do for any normal use.
In short, no not really for modern windows versions, in almost all cases.
Although I donât find âwell Windows does it so it must be alrightâ to be a great argument anyway. When someone says âtop notch securityâ, Windows isnât the first thing that springs to my mind.
It usually does, but it doesnât have to.
Hypothetically yes, but in every single distro out there that Iâve seen no. And most people donât build their own from scratch.
And the new thing to replace that is still not good enough after 10 years or so.
Not in all cases, no. There are fringe usecases still being worked on. Iâve been using it since 2016 just fine, but my sister, who is reliant on screen readers, hasnât been able to.
Like I said, things are being worked on. This is kind of derailing the conversation away from security, though. I was talking about security.
Letâs please not extrapolate the problems of your distribution to all of them.
No. It is all of them. Itâs a problem with all Debian-based distros, Fedora, SUSE, Arch, you name it. Installer scripts run with root privileges.
Your user may set aliases for the shell of your user, and the program\script ran by your user can do that.
Yes⌠then when you run sudo thinking youâre using whatever command, it can run something entirely different. How donât you see that as a problem?
Itâs not a security hole at all.
WHAT?! Any program, without root privileges, being able to tamper with what commands do, and gain full root access to your system, âis not a security hole at allâ??
So you download, say, a text editor. Except itâs been compromised (although you donât know it). That program alters the sudo command by aliasing it to execute a curl command that encrypts your drive and shows a message that if you send ABC amount of bitcoin to XYZ wallet, then you get the decryption key.
You run sudo for any reason, e.g. to edit your fstab file, do a system update, install a package, anything, and you type your password at the prompt as usual. Unbeknownst to you, you didnât actually just run sudo plus your intended command, you just ran that aforementioned curl script, and you handed it sudo privileges. Your SSD is encrypted, your data is gone.
In your mind, thatâs not a security hole? Thatâs intended behaviour? Any program should be able to do that?
I donât really know what to say to that, other than I disagree wholeheartedly.
Windows isnât the first thing that springs to my mind.
We-ell, this thread kinda started with saying that weâll see glaring security holes with the same desktop popularity as that of Windows.
Hypothetically yes, but in every single distro out there that Iâve seen no. And most people donât build their own from scratch.
Well, then it doesnât require flatpaks and snaps to solve this huge problem, right?
You might have a path where only a certain user has âwâ rights, thatâs readable by everyone, and software is installed there.
You might use Nix or Guix, which are, while not traditional, still pretty normal package managers without things like bundling dependencies.
So NixOS and GuixSD would be such distributions. Admittedly Iâve never used them, only Guix in another distribution.
Not in all cases, no. There are fringe usecases still being worked on. Iâve been using it since 2016 just fine, but my sister, who is reliant on screen readers, hasnât been able to.
Well, since youâve mentioned accessibility, some of us have AuDHD, and while each person is different, for me specifically this means that I can set up CWM or FVWM for X11, but I just canât set up Hikari for Wayland. That is, I had it kinda working, but the anxiety from setting up that and some terminal emulator with hipster XML config and DPI being wrong just made me say âfsck thatâ and go back. I could have tried Gnome with Wayland, but my X11 setup is more subjectively usable.
No. It is all of them. Itâs a problem with all Debian-based distros, Fedora, SUSE, Arch, you name it. Installer scripts run with root privileges.
OK, Iâm not sure, but I think OpenBSD and NetBSD donât run any scripts contained inside packages. They are not Linux ofc.
Yes⌠then when you run sudo thinking youâre using whatever command, it can run something entirely different. How donât you see that as a problem?
Yes, you can do that. You can set aliases which will look like whatever at all. How do you solve that âproblemâ?
So you download, say, a text editor. Except itâs been compromised (although you donât know it).
OK, Iâll make a shortcut here and say that if you think this is a problem, the only real fundamentally sane way to solve it is to disallow privilege elevation, say, after single mode, and boot to that in case you need to do some maintenance.
In your mind, thatâs not a security hole? Thatâs intended behaviour? Any program should be able to do that?
I donât really know what to say to that, other than I disagree wholeheartedly.
Any program that you run. Well, or one can forbid aliasing âsudoâ in the shell, of course. But you wonât run out of things which can be aliased to something nasty. It will be the same as rm -rf / advice evolving to rm -rf /*
We-ell, this thread kinda started with saying that weâll see glaring security holes with the same desktop popularity as that of Windows.
Yeah, like windows did, for a long time, and from time to time still does.
Well, then it doesnât require flatpaks and snaps to solve this huge problem, right?
It pretty much does, yes.
Well, since youâve mentioned accessibility [âŚ]
Ok. Not to do with security. Letâs not get sidetracked.
Ok Iâm not sure, but I think OpenBSD and NetBSD donât run any scripts contained inside packages. They are not Linux ofc
Iâm not sure about the BSDs, but Iâm talking about Linux. And as it stands, the package installation step is a risky process in any distro Iâve ever seen. You just have to rely that no mistake will ever be made by packagers, nothing will slip past them, and that they manually and thoroughly look through every installation process of every package (which they donât).
Itâs an unnecessary risk that gets solved by Flatpak (plus a bunch of other security advantages)
Yes, you can do that. You can set aliases which will look like whatever at all. How do you solve that âproblemâ?
I donât know, Iâm not a security expert. But it is a problem, and a massive one.
100% there will be more malware and scams as Linux grows. In fact, itâs happening already.
Just look at there being multiple instances of cryptowallet theft on Ubuntuâs app store by devs uploading fake copies of crypto wallet managers.
And thatâs before we even get onto DEs â and much of the desktop Linux stack in general â generally not being designed with security in mind, as itâs not been something theyâve had to worry about.
We will see more malware, more scams. We will see glaring security problems that were allowed to stay in place for years be exploited. We will see infighting in the Linux community over all of this stuff.
It is the price we must pay for being an increasingly relevant platform.
With any luck, more users will mean more contributors, more financial support for devs, and of course better security as a result of that - you only need to look at how much KDE Plasma has improved with support from Valve, and how much work Gnome has been getting done after Germanyâs âSovereign Tech Fundâ contribution to see that even a little bit of support can go a long way.
And thatâs before we even get onto DEs â and much of the desktop Linux stack in general â generally not being designed with security in mind, as itâs not been something theyâve had to worry about.
Iâm not sure this is entirely correct. But thereâs truth here in the sense that things have been becoming more complex over time, so now an average desktop system has much more packages than 10 years ago, and supply chain vulnerabilities are a thing.
Now, using snap store, flathub and all that is just unhygienic.
We will see more malware, more scams. We will see glaring security problems that were allowed to stay in place for years be exploited. We will see infighting in the Linux community over all of this stuff.
Iâm certain most of the failures will be in the new shiny stuff, and thus most of the losses in that infighting too.
Now, using snap store, flathub and all that is just unhygienic.
What is this based on? What do you mean by âunhygienicâ anyway?
Flatpaks are more secure than system packages. Theyâre not installed with installation scripts that run as root (and can therefore do anything to your system if malicious code is slipped in.
Flatpaks also have sandboxing. Itâs not a perfect implementation mind you, but itâs better than zero sandboxing.
Snaps is a bit more complicated, but sandboxing works if you have a fistro that uses AppArmour, so basically Ubuntu and some derivatives. Although who else would use snaps anyway lol. Flatpak won that fight.
Iâm certain most of the failures will be in the new shiny stuff
I donât know why youâd be certain of that. New stuff is generally designed from the ground up to be more secure.
Look at Flatpaks Vs repo packages.
Look at xdg-portals Vs 500 different implementations to do the same thing.
Look at the absolutely cataclysmic security catastrophe that is X11 compared to Wayland.
Because a vulnerability in one DEâs file manager, for example, will have smaller impact because many people donât use that DE.
Same with other things.
Also because thatâs something we still had to worry about.
Flatpaks are more secure than system packages. Theyâre not installed with installation scripts that run as root (and can therefore do anything to your system if malicious code is slipped in.
Not all package managers even run install scripts (from packages) at all.
Flatpaks may contain vulnerable versions of libraries bundles, IIRC. While the one from the normal package manager has been updated.
Flatpaks also have sandboxing. Itâs not a perfect implementation mind you, but itâs better than zero sandboxing.
I just donât like the general direction of this. Running more and more complex and untrusted crap and solving that with more complexity.
I donât know why youâd be certain of that. New stuff is generally designed from the ground up to be more secure.
More complexity - bigger probability of mistakes. Sometimes fundamental laws are enough.
Look at the absolutely cataclysmic security catastrophe that is X11 compared to Wayland.
Iâm afraid of the day that may come where people will say that Emacs is a security catastrophe due to lack of isolation.
This essentially all boils down to âI donât like new things, and despite it being made more secure, I donât trust itâ
How are sandboxes âuntrusted crapâ?
You talk about complexity being bad, yet you seem to prefer X11 over Wayland, and 500 different implementations of the same thing, implemented separately by every app developer, rather than using a standardised xdg-portal. Surely you see the contradiction there?
This essentially all boils down to âI donât like new things, and despite it being made more secure, I donât trust itâ
No, quite the opposite, I like new things, just in my own direction. Which would be simplification. Weâve had this exponential growth of computing power and complexity and expectations in the last 30 years, which canât go on.
Again, where youâd use a screwdriver 100 years ago, youâll still generally use a screwdriver, possibly one as simple as 200 years ago, but with computers we for some reason have to hammer nails with a microscope today.
A personal computer should be as complex as Amiga 500 tops.
Wasting 1000 times the energy to try and make it easier to use than that still hasnât yielded satisfactory results, for a sane person this means stop.
The rest is just gaslighting.
How are sandboxes âuntrusted crapâ?
What you run in them is untrusted crap.
yet you seem to prefer X11 over Wayland, and 500 different implementations of the same thing, implemented separately by every app developer,
Yes, whatâs standard in X11 has N different variants with Wayland. Correct.
rather than using a standardised xdg-portal
I donât use it at all.
If you meant that Wayland is simpler than X11, letâs compare them when Wayland reaches feature parity. Also X11 as a standard is simple enough.
I also consider Nix and Guix to be better solutions to some of the problems Flatpak and Snap solve, and Flatpak and Snap to fall short of solving others.
Like I said, much of the new things youâre complaining about is simplification. Flatpak, Wayland, xdg-portals.
A personal computer should be as complex as Amiga 500 tops.
Lol. Why stop there? Why not say they should be no more complex than an abacus?
What you run in them is untrusted crap.
How?
And assuming it is⌠running it without a sandbox is somehow better??
Yes, whatâs standard in X11 has N different variants with Wayland. Correct
Can you please answer. X11 is far more complex than Wayland. Why do you prefer it if you like simplicity?
I donât use it at all.
You donât use programs that⌠do things? Things like follow system theming, give notifications, open/save files, record your screen, open a file picker, etc? I donât think youâre grasping what portals are.
If you meant that Wayland is simpler than X11,
Wayland is simpler than X11, by a long shot.
letâs compare them when Wayland reaches feature parity.
It wonât ever, by choice. Itâs not meant to. X11 is filled with many mistakes that it should never have had.
Also X11 as a standard is simple enough.
The X11 developers say otherwise, and have embraced Wayland.
I also consider Nix and Guix to be better solutions to some of the problems Flatpak and Snap solve, and Flatpak and Snap to fall short of solving others.
Christ. I donât. At all. You want simplicity and are now advocating for Nix and Guix, no Flatpaks, sticking with X11, no xdg-portals?
Do you have the definitions of âsimpleâ and âcomplicatedâ mixed up in your mind?
Like I said, much of the new things youâre complaining about is simplification. Flatpak, Wayland, xdg-portals.
No. AppImage is relatively simple. Flatpak is not. Thereâs a clear difference between ânew shinyâ and ânewâ.
Lol. Why stop there? Why not say they should be no more complex than an abacus?
Amiga 500 is quite functional as compared to abacus. Modern PCs not so much as compared to Amiga 500.
Can you please answer. X11 is far more complex than Wayland. Why do you prefer it if you like simplicity?
Itâs not far more complex as a protocol.
You donât use programs that⌠do things? Things like follow system theming, give notifications, open/save files, record your screen, open a file picker, etc? I donât think youâre grasping what portals are.
I donât, quick googling says this is something connected to giving permissions to Flatpaks or something, which I donât use.
Wayland is simpler than X11, by a long shot.
ColibriOS is simpler than Genera.
It wonât ever, by choice. Itâs not meant to. X11 is filled with many mistakes that it should never have had.
As in?
The X11 developers say otherwise, and have embraced Wayland.
So what? Itâs not a religion to embrace.
Do you have the definitions of âsimpleâ and âcomplicatedâ mixed up in your mind?
In what world is Guix more complex than Flatpaks?
See, you are trying to do these emotional hints at me saying something stupid, but this is really too much.
I wonder how much of it is that casual users are less likely to even own/use a laptop/desktop for personal use anymore. Mobile devices, and maybe tablets, have been the most popular way of connecting to the internet for a while.
Itâs an outdated interface connection standard commonly used by camcorders in the 1990âs (mostly MiniDV camcorders I think); its technical name (or name of its specification rather) is IEEE1394, âFireWireâ is just the marketing term Apple used for it. I think Sony called it âi.Linkâ.
FireWire400 is really called IEEE1934a and has a theoretical transfer rate of 400 Mb/s, it can deliver 7 watts of power and carry ethernet packets.
The standard pretty much died off as soon as USB 3.0 came out AFAIK, since they couldnât get higher transfer speeds than a theoretical 800 Mb/s (whereas USB3 supports up to 5 Gb/s).
My profile picture shows a FireWire400 port on the front panel of a PowerMac G5.
I honestly donât know how to think about this. On one hand, itâs pretty cool that more and more users are giving the finger to Microsoft and switch to Linux.
On the other hand, Linux systems are gonna become a bigger target for cyberattacks or malware. I realise that I, as a regular person who isnât on dodgy porn sites all day, probably have nothing to fear but still, I like my Linux lightweight and if they have to slap some antivirus on there⌠eh idk
Donât fret! 95+% all servers on the internet run Linux so the attack vector has been there for ages. Follow best practices and your risk will remain low!
Unfortunately thereâs a lot more to it than that.
Youâre right that the âback endâ of Linux systems tend to be quite hardened.
Itâs the desktop environments that are a concern when it comes to security hardening, IMO. Almost all servers have no DE installed so itâs not something enterprise has cared about.
How much effort has been put into security on DEs? I honestly have no idea, but so far there hasnât been an enormous pressure to security harden them.
Shit, look at:
X11. Itâs insecure by design, yet most distros still ship with it (understandably, since Wayland isnât 100% yet).
packaged software runs as root during the whole installation period - this means that anything slipped into the install script will have full root privileges to do anything to your system. Flatpak does fix this, but normally-packaged software is still abundant.
any non-root program can change aliases in your bashrc or bash_aliases file. I.e. they can change âapt installâ to some other nefarious command, or to point to a dodgy software repository, so that next time the user types âsudo apt install [XYZ]â, it downloads malware or does other nasty things.
Iâm absolutely clueless about this stuff and I can come up with those potential attack vectors in seconds. Imagine what a proficient hacker could do, or a hostile nation-state.
I definitely think improvements will have to be made in terms of security, and weâre no doubt going to hear more about malware in the coming years. But itâs not an insurmountable problem, IMO. Distros and DEs will just take time to adapt.
This is a bit overhyped.
WTF? Things that run as root, do. Things that donât, donât. Obviously most things donât.
For your own user, so what?
EDIT:
Actually it is. One can make levels over levels of isolation, sandboxes and more sandboxes, but in the end conscious hygiene matters most.
No, it isnât. If anything itâs the opposite.
Under X11, any program of any kind can see the contents of another program.
Under X11, any program of any kind can see all your keypresses, whether the app is focussed, unfocused, minimised, on another virtual desktop. Anything.
Under X11, any program can inject keypresses into any other program.
Under X11, any program of any kind can access your clipboard.
And it doesnât even take root privileges. Thatâs just the default.
The X11 system itself runs as root, though. And this opens the door for privilege escalation exploits.
Thatâs before we even consider the devs themselves saying that the complexity, decades of spaghetti code, and unfixable bugs make it virtually impossible to patch.
X11 is a security nightmare of epic proportions. An absolutely cataclysmically insecure system. And itâs one of the main reasons that X11 devs abandoned it for Wayland.
I never said that things that donât run as root run as root. That doesnât make sense, itâs self contradictory.
What I said was that install scripts for repo packages always run as root. And therefore anything that makes its way into the script will be executed with root privileges. That is a risk.
What do you mean, âso whatâ?! A non-root program being able to highjack system commands and even gain root access isnât âso whatâ, itâs a glaring security hole.
Youâre right, but youâre taking my words there a little too literally there.
When I say the problems arenât insurmountable I mean âwith effort, a lot of these will be fixed and your system will be pretty secureâ, not âone day Linux systems will literally be unhackable, and no exploit or security issue will ever be found again. Security problems will be a thing of the past.â
This would be the same as under Windows, no?
It usually does, but it doesnât have to.
And the new thing to replace that is still not good enough after 10 years or so.
Letâs please not extrapolate the problems of your distribution to all of them.
Your user may set aliases for the shell of your user, and the program\script ran by your user can do that.
Itâs not a security hole at all. Itâs something you should be able to do for any normal use.
In short, no not really for modern windows versions, in almost all cases.
Although I donât find âwell Windows does it so it must be alrightâ to be a great argument anyway. When someone says âtop notch securityâ, Windows isnât the first thing that springs to my mind.
Hypothetically yes, but in every single distro out there that Iâve seen no. And most people donât build their own from scratch.
Not in all cases, no. There are fringe usecases still being worked on. Iâve been using it since 2016 just fine, but my sister, who is reliant on screen readers, hasnât been able to.
Like I said, things are being worked on. This is kind of derailing the conversation away from security, though. I was talking about security.
No. It is all of them. Itâs a problem with all Debian-based distros, Fedora, SUSE, Arch, you name it. Installer scripts run with root privileges.
Yes⌠then when you run sudo thinking youâre using whatever command, it can run something entirely different. How donât you see that as a problem?
WHAT?! Any program, without root privileges, being able to tamper with what commands do, and gain full root access to your system, âis not a security hole at allâ??
So you download, say, a text editor. Except itâs been compromised (although you donât know it). That program alters the sudo command by aliasing it to execute a curl command that encrypts your drive and shows a message that if you send ABC amount of bitcoin to XYZ wallet, then you get the decryption key.
You run sudo for any reason, e.g. to edit your fstab file, do a system update, install a package, anything, and you type your password at the prompt as usual. Unbeknownst to you, you didnât actually just run sudo plus your intended command, you just ran that aforementioned curl script, and you handed it sudo privileges. Your SSD is encrypted, your data is gone.
In your mind, thatâs not a security hole? Thatâs intended behaviour? Any program should be able to do that?
I donât really know what to say to that, other than I disagree wholeheartedly.
We-ell, this thread kinda started with saying that weâll see glaring security holes with the same desktop popularity as that of Windows.
Well, then it doesnât require flatpaks and snaps to solve this huge problem, right?
You might have a path where only a certain user has âwâ rights, thatâs readable by everyone, and software is installed there.
You might use Nix or Guix, which are, while not traditional, still pretty normal package managers without things like bundling dependencies.
So NixOS and GuixSD would be such distributions. Admittedly Iâve never used them, only Guix in another distribution.
Well, since youâve mentioned accessibility, some of us have AuDHD, and while each person is different, for me specifically this means that I can set up CWM or FVWM for X11, but I just canât set up Hikari for Wayland. That is, I had it kinda working, but the anxiety from setting up that and some terminal emulator with hipster XML config and DPI being wrong just made me say âfsck thatâ and go back. I could have tried Gnome with Wayland, but my X11 setup is more subjectively usable.
OK, Iâm not sure, but I think OpenBSD and NetBSD donât run any scripts contained inside packages. They are not Linux ofc.
Yes, you can do that. You can set aliases which will look like whatever at all. How do you solve that âproblemâ?
OK, Iâll make a shortcut here and say that if you think this is a problem, the only real fundamentally sane way to solve it is to disallow privilege elevation, say, after single mode, and boot to that in case you need to do some maintenance.
Any program that you run. Well, or one can forbid aliasing âsudoâ in the shell, of course. But you wonât run out of things which can be aliased to something nasty. It will be the same as
rm -rf /advice evolving torm -rf /*Yeah, like windows did, for a long time, and from time to time still does.
It pretty much does, yes.
Ok. Not to do with security. Letâs not get sidetracked.
Iâm not sure about the BSDs, but Iâm talking about Linux. And as it stands, the package installation step is a risky process in any distro Iâve ever seen. You just have to rely that no mistake will ever be made by packagers, nothing will slip past them, and that they manually and thoroughly look through every installation process of every package (which they donât).
Itâs an unnecessary risk that gets solved by Flatpak (plus a bunch of other security advantages)
I donât know, Iâm not a security expert. But it is a problem, and a massive one.
The best protection against malware is closing the security flaws they typically abuse to make them work in the first place.
The biggest security flaw though is typically the human itself.
⌠how do you close that hole?
Removed by mod
Not that easy if you want it to be safe, quick and painless - and ideally without traumatizing someone else.
wtf
100% there will be more malware and scams as Linux grows. In fact, itâs happening already.
Just look at there being multiple instances of cryptowallet theft on Ubuntuâs app store by devs uploading fake copies of crypto wallet managers.
And thatâs before we even get onto DEs â and much of the desktop Linux stack in general â generally not being designed with security in mind, as itâs not been something theyâve had to worry about.
We will see more malware, more scams. We will see glaring security problems that were allowed to stay in place for years be exploited. We will see infighting in the Linux community over all of this stuff.
It is the price we must pay for being an increasingly relevant platform.
With any luck, more users will mean more contributors, more financial support for devs, and of course better security as a result of that - you only need to look at how much KDE Plasma has improved with support from Valve, and how much work Gnome has been getting done after Germanyâs âSovereign Tech Fundâ contribution to see that even a little bit of support can go a long way.
Iâm not sure this is entirely correct. But thereâs truth here in the sense that things have been becoming more complex over time, so now an average desktop system has much more packages than 10 years ago, and supply chain vulnerabilities are a thing.
Now, using snap store, flathub and all that is just unhygienic.
Iâm certain most of the failures will be in the new shiny stuff, and thus most of the losses in that infighting too.
Why is that?
What is this based on? What do you mean by âunhygienicâ anyway?
Flatpaks are more secure than system packages. Theyâre not installed with installation scripts that run as root (and can therefore do anything to your system if malicious code is slipped in.
Flatpaks also have sandboxing. Itâs not a perfect implementation mind you, but itâs better than zero sandboxing.
Snaps is a bit more complicated, but sandboxing works if you have a fistro that uses AppArmour, so basically Ubuntu and some derivatives. Although who else would use snaps anyway lol. Flatpak won that fight.
I donât know why youâd be certain of that. New stuff is generally designed from the ground up to be more secure.
Look at Flatpaks Vs repo packages.
Look at xdg-portals Vs 500 different implementations to do the same thing.
Look at the absolutely cataclysmic security catastrophe that is X11 compared to Wayland.
Because a vulnerability in one DEâs file manager, for example, will have smaller impact because many people donât use that DE.
Same with other things.
Also because thatâs something we still had to worry about.
Not all package managers even run install scripts (from packages) at all.
Flatpaks may contain vulnerable versions of libraries bundles, IIRC. While the one from the normal package manager has been updated.
I just donât like the general direction of this. Running more and more complex and untrusted crap and solving that with more complexity.
More complexity - bigger probability of mistakes. Sometimes fundamental laws are enough.
Iâm afraid of the day that may come where people will say that Emacs is a security catastrophe due to lack of isolation.
This essentially all boils down to âI donât like new things, and despite it being made more secure, I donât trust itâ
How are sandboxes âuntrusted crapâ?
You talk about complexity being bad, yet you seem to prefer X11 over Wayland, and 500 different implementations of the same thing, implemented separately by every app developer, rather than using a standardised xdg-portal. Surely you see the contradiction there?
No, quite the opposite, I like new things, just in my own direction. Which would be simplification. Weâve had this exponential growth of computing power and complexity and expectations in the last 30 years, which canât go on.
Again, where youâd use a screwdriver 100 years ago, youâll still generally use a screwdriver, possibly one as simple as 200 years ago, but with computers we for some reason have to hammer nails with a microscope today.
A personal computer should be as complex as Amiga 500 tops.
Wasting 1000 times the energy to try and make it easier to use than that still hasnât yielded satisfactory results, for a sane person this means stop.
The rest is just gaslighting.
What you run in them is untrusted crap.
Yes, whatâs standard in X11 has N different variants with Wayland. Correct.
I donât use it at all.
If you meant that Wayland is simpler than X11, letâs compare them when Wayland reaches feature parity. Also X11 as a standard is simple enough.
I also consider Nix and Guix to be better solutions to some of the problems Flatpak and Snap solve, and Flatpak and Snap to fall short of solving others.
Like I said, much of the new things youâre complaining about is simplification. Flatpak, Wayland, xdg-portals.
Lol. Why stop there? Why not say they should be no more complex than an abacus?
How?
And assuming it is⌠running it without a sandbox is somehow better??
Can you please answer. X11 is far more complex than Wayland. Why do you prefer it if you like simplicity?
You donât use programs that⌠do things? Things like follow system theming, give notifications, open/save files, record your screen, open a file picker, etc? I donât think youâre grasping what portals are.
Wayland is simpler than X11, by a long shot.
It wonât ever, by choice. Itâs not meant to. X11 is filled with many mistakes that it should never have had.
The X11 developers say otherwise, and have embraced Wayland.
Christ. I donât. At all. You want simplicity and are now advocating for Nix and Guix, no Flatpaks, sticking with X11, no xdg-portals?
Do you have the definitions of âsimpleâ and âcomplicatedâ mixed up in your mind?
No. AppImage is relatively simple. Flatpak is not. Thereâs a clear difference between ânew shinyâ and ânewâ.
Amiga 500 is quite functional as compared to abacus. Modern PCs not so much as compared to Amiga 500.
Itâs not far more complex as a protocol.
I donât, quick googling says this is something connected to giving permissions to Flatpaks or something, which I donât use.
ColibriOS is simpler than Genera.
As in?
So what? Itâs not a religion to embrace.
In what world is Guix more complex than Flatpaks?
See, you are trying to do these emotional hints at me saying something stupid, but this is really too much.
Go BSD.
I wonder how much of it is that casual users are less likely to even own/use a laptop/desktop for personal use anymore. Mobile devices, and maybe tablets, have been the most popular way of connecting to the internet for a while.
Can you describe firewire in great detail?
Itâs an outdated interface connection standard commonly used by camcorders in the 1990âs (mostly MiniDV camcorders I think); its technical name (or name of its specification rather) is IEEE1394, âFireWireâ is just the marketing term Apple used for it. I think Sony called it âi.Linkâ.
FireWire400 is really called IEEE1934a and has a theoretical transfer rate of 400 Mb/s, it can deliver 7 watts of power and carry ethernet packets.
The standard pretty much died off as soon as USB 3.0 came out AFAIK, since they couldnât get higher transfer speeds than a theoretical 800 Mb/s (whereas USB3 supports up to 5 Gb/s).
My profile picture shows a FireWire400 port on the front panel of a PowerMac G5.