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Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

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Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#181
post #172

It's interesting that the problems are all with things that I actively dislike about the modern Linux desktop. I mean, I guess it's OK that it creates thumbnails of images...but, the tendency to grind away for seconds whenever opening a big folder (Windows does it, too, I guess) is just annoying. I end up using command line most of the time for file management tasks because it's too slow and cumbersome to use the UI.…

If you are using nautilus, I don't think it's the thumbnailing. Try opening /usr/bin and it takes longer than you would expect. From what I remember nautilus does excessive stat calls, looking for thumbnails - it could definitely be much faster.

The standard KDE/Qt based filemanager (forgot name) is much quicker even with showing the details. Meaning, Nautilus is just very inefficient as that other filemanager is able to show things much more quickly.

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#182
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apport, gstreamer, Tracker/Baloo, Chrome/Chromium/Epiphany, ASLR isn't just GNOME. It seems investigation started on Ubuntu (Unity 7). It affects multiple desktops and as others notes, also Baloo.

And the point goes wosh past the pr flack once more...

You're the one focussed on GNOME. I didn't read the article until you said it was about GNOME, which it isn't.

If would be nice if you'd tell me how Unity 7 is GNOME? Or apport? Or baloo? That's all GNOME? Gstreamer? GNOME? Really?

As mentioned various times: please read what I wrote, try to form an argument. Maybe even use your brain. Good luck!

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#183
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You. Are. Not. Supposed. To. Install. Debian. Stable. On. A. Desktop. Machine. How many times will this have to be repeated? Stable is for servers. If you're running webkit based libraries on your server you have other issues. For desktops, both Testing and Unstable are the valid options.

that's like ... your opinion. the way you try tu make it look as if it's a widely accepted best practice among Debian users is not cool. Debian stable is a perfectly viable distribution for desktop use.

Except... it is? Having spoken with quite a few people on #debian, hell, even a simple google search agrees with that. Don't use stable unless you have a very old machine. Using stable brings you... stability and three years old packages. Using testing brings you stability and six months old packages. Using unstable brings you stability and sometimes fun things and one week old packages. For the Personal Anecdote Bonus Points, even sysadmin friends that swear by stable would tell me to use testing for a desktop distro.

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#184
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the point goes wosh past the pr flack once more...

You're the one focussed on GNOME. I didn't read the article until you said it was about GNOME, which it isn't. If would be nice if you'd tell me how Unity 7 is GNOME? Or apport? Or baloo? That's all GNOME? Gstreamer? GNOME? Really? As mentioned various times: please read what I wrote, try to form an argument. Maybe even use your brain. Good luck!

And the insults come flying...

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#185
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the point goes wosh past the pr flack once more...

You're the one focussed on GNOME. I didn't read the article until you said it was about GNOME, which it isn't. If would be nice if you'd tell me how Unity 7 is GNOME? Or apport? Or baloo? That's all GNOME? Gstreamer? GNOME? Really? As mentioned various times: please read what I wrote, try to form an argument. Maybe even use your brain. Good luck!

Maybe even use your brain. Good luck!

No matter the behavior or how wrong the other poster may be, there's never a reason to be uncivil.

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#186
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's like ... your opinion. the way you try tu make it look as if it's a widely accepted best practice among Debian users is not cool. Debian stable is a perfectly viable distribution for desktop use.

Except... it is? Having spoken with quite a few people on #debian, hell, even a simple google search agrees with that. Don't use stable unless you have a very old machine. Using stable brings you... stability and three years old packages. Using testing brings you stability and six months old packages. Using unstable brings you stability and sometimes fun things and one week old packages. For the Personal Anecdote Bon…

People over #debian or your sysadmin friends are entitled to their own opinions and not representative of Debian users other than themselves, and for every random recommendation for not using stable you can find another random one about dangers of using testing or unstable.

If you check the Debian web site you'll see stable is the only one which is offically supported and recommended by the project and there is no distinction for "server" or "desktop" use cases. Had stable was non-suitable as a desktop OS you can be sure Debian developers wouldn't bother releasing and supporting thousands of desktop/graphical packages with the stable release.

In the end stable, testing and unstable have all their pros and cons, strong and weak areas and some are more suitable for some use cases. That Debian stable is only for servers and it is not a good desktop OS is a myth that needs to die. Stable is a damn fine desktop OS. Everyone is free to use whatever they deemed best for their use but when you post blanket statements like "You. Are. Not. Supposed. To. Install. Debian. Stable. On. A. Desktop. Machine." and "Stable is for servers" on a public forum you are spreading misinformation and you should just stop.

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#187
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take cash, buy computer at retailer...

Sure. Except that I don't want another computer. Just an OS to install. What's hard to get anonymously is the license.

Take cash, go to retailer and buy prepaid visa card, buy digital license using that card.

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#188
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"macOS ... privacy is usually given more consideration" Definitely not my feeling last time I upgraded macOs: I had to give my full name, address, * phone number * and * * bank details * * while the upgrade is free of cost. I don't like having these details hanging on server somewhere on Internet when it is not needed. I felt like my profile was given a lost of consideration by Apple, not my privacy.

Yeah * you don't have to enter your * bank account, there's instructions on the * Apple site. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034

You have to * when installing a free MacOS upgrade *: you can create an Apple id without a payment method; you can probably remove the payment method after you enter one...

... But when installing or downloading MacOS, with the current (tested in January this year in Europe) Apple policy, the system will not let you continue with a 'none' payment method.

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#189
post #181
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are using nautilus, I don't think it's the thumbnailing. Try opening /usr/bin and it takes longer than you would expect. From what I remember nautilus does excessive stat calls, looking for thumbnails - it could definitely be much faster.

The standard KDE/Qt based filemanager (forgot name) is much quicker even with showing the details. Meaning, Nautilus is just very inefficient as that other filemanager is able to show things much more quickly.

That's KDE Dolphin, has been improved a lot over the last few years.

KDE in general has been in good shape, better than GNOME 3 in my opinion. I've been using GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 (up to 3.8 when they completely got rid of fallback mode) for about 10 years, always felt that Nautilus as a file manager was basic and useless.

I switched back to KDE 4 (AFAIR it was 4.10 at that time), the desktop search and index implementation - NEPOMUK (what a bad name) had big performance issues when doing the inital indexing and when it does periodic indexing the desktop simply choke. It took a while to search for tips and best practices to settle it down. Later on I decided to completely disable that as I don't need it...

Later on KDE switched to a new search and indexing engine called Baloo, it seems that the design is better and configuration is more straightforward but I still cannot justify, disabled ;-)

In short, have been running Linux as my main desktop / workstation OS for 15 years, I come to a conclusion that OOTB (most distros) setup is not ideally optimized and secure for Linux Ninja, it takes time and effort to tune the system to suite your personal standard / taste (Now I run Arch Linux on most of my devices).

Re: Is the Linux Desktop less secure than Windows 10? [pdf]

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fedora comes with SELinux enabled by default, and is working towards more interesting sandboxing stuff for the future too.

Unfortunately, while SELinux itself is good, the tooling around it has to be the most atrocious, useless steaming pile of thrash in this niche. From setroubleshootd randomly deciding to eat up 100% of CPU time (and no one being able to explain exactly what it does) to the endless fun of figuring out what policycoreutils-python & friends do and how, actually doing something useful with it is somewhere between "painful…

Oh yes, SElinux tooling is an abomination.

I feel like there should be a way to write a new set of simplified tooling on top of the kernel API.

I've been running fedora at home an on my laptop for about a year now, and don't need to turn SElinux off. I only needed to add one custom role myself too, when trying to mount certain host directories as volumes in docker. Which is fair enough.

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