Linux users! Why Linux?

[Genesis_Uchiha]

Truth be told, I moved to Ubuntu recently because I'm building a new Ryzen PC that doesn't like Windows 10. Well, it suits me just fine since I hate Windows 10 more than Ryzen does. I've tried using Windows 10 on two different occasions... Once when it first came out I kept it for about 2 weeks and got rid of it. Then around last October I tried it again and this time I left it on my PC for about 3 months and everytime I turned my PC on, it made me not even want to touch my computer and just annoyed me to no end.

 

My favorite OS to-date is and will always be Windows XP, so upon installing Ubuntu, I got a theme and other addons to replicate the Windows XP system exactly (the start menu still needs a little work though) but I've been using my Ubuntu on my current AM3+ build to better familiarize myself with it before I buy my new Ryzen hardware and so far I have to say Linux is superior in speed, reliability and performance. Not to mention it only takes 5 seconds to get to my desktop after I hit my power button so that's a huge plus in itself. On top of all of that, even with my current AMD 6300 CPU, my 16GB of RAM and my GTX 1060 GPU, I can handle running Wine and a VM should I need to for any Windows applications.

[tildesare.cool]

I'm new to the forum but I'm going to reply anyway. Also, sorry this ended up so long.

 

After an ~20 year on/off relationship with Linux desktop I finally switched over in whole last January (2018). Although I cheat by still keeping a windows PC around (I have to use use a VPN and RDP into my work PC). 

 

I see these kinds of threads all the time and they all annoy me all the same ways. There's inaccurate statements on Windows, there's inaccurate statements on Linux and there's just general vagueness and generalities for either. I'm working on not letting it bother me (semi-successfully). I've kind of been "straddling" for a long time now. Taking a good thing from that and a different thing from this and using knowledge of one to benefit the other.

 

First there's the notion that Linux and/or open source software is inherently more secure simply because the source is available. Which isn't true: just because it's there doesn't mean anybody is actually looking at it. It just means it's there. I think the OpenSSL thing kind of proved this: flaws there for years, fully open source and no one caught it. There seems to be this assumption that there's hoards of software engineers pouring over every open source project every where. But that's not true. Open source does not inherently make a piece of software more secure in and of itself (OpenSSL was so widely used and had and an incredibly small team of developers). 

 

Secondly there's the assumption that Windows is safeguarding and preventing things from happening on some level (packet inspection and some other low level things). These statements always seem to be quite vague and I never quite know what specifically is being referred to. In my experience Windows can be manipulated in some way until eventually you can do what you need to do. Might take a while, might have to pay for some software to assist, might have to turn off a long list of safeguards/driver signing/security checks, but you can do it. If someone has a specific example I'd actually like to know...

 

I actually had a hard time installing Linux - Mint in my case - because I bought an AlienWare laptop (for some reason). The Mint installer kept freezing the whole laptop up. I don't know if it was NVME or the BIOS or some combination of the two. But it made it more difficult than necessary. I got 17.10 installed but didn't have a storage drive because of all the issues I was having. Ended up waiting for 18.04 since it was going to be an LTS and have a more up to date kernel version. Turns out 18.04 was just as difficult to install but once installed works a lot better.

 

And I will say this: with each incremental kernel update I install the hardware seems to work a little better. Or it's my imagination. I'm not sure.

 

For gaming I've got a couple of notes:

• When I finally settled on my Mint install and put in my storage drive I installed the native Steam client. There's an extra filter to show what games in the library already have Linux ports available. I was quite surprised how many games i already own (I do have a fairly extensive steam library).
  • On that note Everspace is one game with a native Linux version. It even supports 21:9 native. I can't get it to launch directly from steam but i can run the shell script steam is supposed to be launching for me and play the game that way. Just marginally inconvenient. If I cared more I'd try to solve that issue...
• I'm allowed to post Linus videos here right? That's a thing? I'm new here like I said. I'm going to assume it's okay. Here's a video about a Linux enthusiast playing windows games with Linux:
  This really makes me want to spend the next 6 months figuring out how to do this. I guess you could say I'm the perfect audience for Linux. I mean if it's possible with a laptop GPU. Which it probably isn't.

 

One of the things that annoys me about these kinds of threads is the Linux users replies seem to lack mentioning of some really cool stuff that makes Linux worthwhile. At least for me. 

 

For instance I got really into network booting for a while. For whatever reason it just seems like there's a lot more tools and utilities and documentation out there on the Linux side then any other OS. At least as a base. 

 

Even if you only wanted to do Windows installs the PXE server you would want to go with is Linux. And there are a ton of options for setting it up. Am I the only one that finds this appealing? Power on PC, choose "one time boot menu" and "network boot" then maybe set an option or two and push enter...it goes into the OS setup and installs itself. The "answer file" part would be separate but this seems like a really cool idea to me. And all those packages and examples make it so easy under Linux.

 

Secondly there's "the terminal". Well really "the terminal" is "the command line" of which both CMD and PowerShell are apart. In Linux there's the BASH shell and actually PowerShell is open source now so if you wanted PowerShell in Linux for some reason you could use it. But really I only mention the terminal because these threads never mention utilities like TMUX: basically allows you to partition your terminal into multiple instances. For instance if I wanted to make an edit to a particular config file but couldn't remember what line I was editing and in what way I could use TMUX to split the terminal vertically so the top half has a MAN page for the config file and bottom half is VIM opened to edit that config file. It's very nice. Makes the terminal that much more usable. 

 

And for the record Windows 10 does have a native package manager. I think it's aimed more towards enterprises, but it's there. And you can add a more enthusiast type version if you want it (see the chocolatey web site for details).

 

Also one of the best things I love about Linux is native support for git. I started trying to learn git a couple years ago. And I still feel like I barely know it (insert hilarious web comic here). I've also tried using under windows but it always feel entirely too shoe-horned in and awkward (although tortoise git comes close). This is how literally all Linux users should be managing their config files and anything else that just needs to be tracked in some way. 

 

I also love the native SSH support. I mean I can have both physical machines and VMs running and just tile all my SSH terms all I want to monitor them. Something roughly equivalent is possible in Windows with PuTTY and similar utilities but I think I prefer Linux for this. 

 

As for why I actually switched after 20 years of flirting with the idea...I don't like the 6 month mandatory upgrade schedule. It just takes too much disk space and time to worry about it.  And I concluded that before the Windows 10 18.03 disaster. I have several extremely low end devices I wanted to use for kind of a psuedo embedded MAME/low end gaming thing. But can't really because these devices have only 32 gigs of eMMC storage so as soon as I connect to the internet...the new build starts downloading slowing down the system and takes up the entire storage device (then informs me it can't upgrade for lack of space). Effectively bricking it. Thanks, Microsoft. Is it really that hard to put in a total-storage-capacity check?  Maybe they'll figure out a delta update and it will be worth re-visiting. I think there's ways to disable auto-download of builds (besides "buy enterprise version") but...Linux and I'm looking for other alternatives for now.

[linuxgod]

23 hours ago, nanaki said:

Actually there have been 2 i know of found and both were in very very old code. Saying that linux has no issues like this is a bad way to hype linux as a good or great os. The second you do and some one searches out it comes. They use to say that there was 10 000 eyes looking over the linux code and that tended to get bugs found but in reality it is 10 k eyes and hands working with the code and inserting their code good or bad. There was as shown by some of these sec bugs ones that were likely horded for future use when it was a big enough target. And there are likely many more sitting in that code. 

 

In a major for profit software company if something like this happened the bosses would say we need to do a full audit of our code base for this this and this to see what else is hiding. This don't happen in linux as much. There are to many variants. The same thing that makes it atractive to many which is those variants also makes it impossible to find ever major sec flaw.

 

As linux becomes less obscure it will become less secure. But in linux it is also far far easier even for the novice user to mitigate those flaws until a patch is available and that patch will come faster. 

You didn't read what I said, most issues reside from the userland bundled with Linux like shellshock and other exploits were not a exploit of the kernel (remember Linux is just a kernel) and since you can change whatever is bundled with it you can mitigate the risks and nowhere did I say it had no issues, if you want the best security go with OpenBSD.

 

Saying Linux will become less secure as it becomes less obscure doesn't hold water because Linux doesn't dominate the desktop market but the enterprise/corporate market is does dominate, anyone looking to do real damage or financial theft will put more time into finding a zeroday for Linux.

 

Also with the code issue, Linus the maintainer of the kernel reviews every commit before he approves it to be merged with the master branch and you can just compile the kernel to only include the modules for your specific hardware and cut 90 percent of the code.

[nanaki]

3 hours ago, linuxgod said:

You didn't read what I said, most issues reside from the userland bundled with Linux like shellshock and other exploits were not a exploit of the kernel (remember Linux is just a kernel) and since you can change whatever is bundled with it you can mitigate the risks and nowhere did I say it had no issues, if you want the best security go with OpenBSD.

 

Saying Linux will become less secure as it becomes less obscure doesn't hold water because Linux doesn't dominate the desktop market but the enterprise/corporate market is does dominate, anyone looking to do real damage or financial theft will put more time into finding a zeroday for Linux.

 

Also with the code issue, Linus the maintainer of the kernel reviews every commit before he approves it to be merged with the master branch and you can just compile the kernel to only include the modules for your specific hardware and cut 90 percent of the code.

I actually need to do that last bit my self to get every drop of battery life i can. But there has been kernel sec flaws that are decades old. Shell shock was yes a userland problem but others were not. 

infact many many many of them 

https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-33/product_id-47/cvssscoremin-7/cvssscoremax-7.99/Linux-Linux-Kernel.html

Is linux more secure by default sure. But should that security be the number one reason to change from windows ? No.

 

False sense of security is possibly more dangerous than if your on something that you know is not secure. Many windows users are becomign aware that security is lax and they are more careful because of that. I have seen mac osx that was so compromised because the lady thought she was super secure and did not need to worry about what she clicked on etc. Wen all was said and done that damn system had every stinking virus key-logger and trojan out there that would infect mac. Dozens of the bastards. She thought she did not need to worry about any thing and behaved that way.  

 

As i ointed out i think in this topic there are some spyware and viruses that are fully cross platform. The first to come to mind is the fbi warning virus that infects every os out (least ones that the public tends to use) 

 

This is the one i mean

 

https://www.fedscoop.com/fbi-responds-new-virus-scam/

 

This is not your modern ransom ware that encrypts the drive it is simply in the case of windows a shell replacement and it also disables taskman alt tab ctrl alt del and a few other things. But it is easy to nuke. In android it is a app that runs and overs up every thing else ios it sets it self as yoru default homepage and locks the built in browser up and intercepts all input. Linux os variants are similar to ios and android it both highjacks all installed browsers and runs at start up covering up your normal gui. I have managed to get it to act the same on openbsd and suse. bsd was much easier as i just used a osx sample and fooled around with it a bit. It is easy to remove and involves basically breaking it and a little fast finger work to get task manager to open on windows using safe mode in android and dropping to a shell in linux or using osx built in terminal recovery at boot time. 

 

With linux becoming more main stream it will become targeted more often. Also foolish mistakes by end users who do not like typing sudo program and pass will do things that will let the allow sudo use with out a password by editing their sudoers files with sudo visudoers (i left out information for that on purpose don't want people doing that with out understanding why you should not. )   

 

Many years ago i made a small prediction about linux it's kernel and security flaws that would be found that existed for a very long time. 

It was essentially this that when linux hit about 10% market share as per installed os linux wuld have dangerous security flaws come to life in the kernel and else where. I said this back around 2k1 2k2 and other times sense. 

 

Here's the thing i failed to account for back then android. Android is under the hood linux chrome os under the hood is linux These 2 other linux based operating systems pushed the interest of exploiting linux etc up for the real black hats. 

 

Things will soon get worse 

 

The stats show May 2017 with 1.99%, June with 2.36%, July had 2.53% and August showed Linux market share increasing to 3.37%.

https://itsfoss.com/linux-market-share/

 

Those numbers are amazing linx is starting to explode in popularity and i love it. Bad things will happen as it gains popularity but more good things will as well. Look for more game companies to develop clients for games with native linux support (thank you Vulcan api) More classically windows only high end programs liek 3d studio max will come to linux (HUGE THANK YOU VULCAN API) and many many other windows only programs will be seen on linux . I my self refuse to be suckered by the linux is secure and no flaws exist in the kernel or shell or any thing else arguments. The entire 1000 pair of eyes argument has been shown false time and time again. All those eyes missed those flaws. Also it is hard to tell how many deeply burried and purposeful back doors could exist inside the code base. Open source code is a double edged sword. No different than closed source is. 

 

I my self for personal use am basically done with windows at least as y primary operating system. If some game comes out i want to lay and it will not run on linux at all then ill sla windows on as a virt machine with the entire pass through deal or ill use a second hd with the express use of windows and that 1 game or games. Lets face it even as "expensive" as ram is today it is still pretty damn cheap adding a crap ton of ram to a machine to use for a vrit machine is still cheap enough. even SSDs of decent quality are cheap large mechanical hdds are retarded cheap even for high end ones. A vid card that will play any thing out there is sub 400. 

 

And in the end what do i get? A computer that just screams it belongs to me and no one else. Every single thing about it is me every tiny detail of the gui is me every detail on the case is me every mouse click actions hot key action etc is me. And the little extra security i get is just a nice bonus. 

 

Hyping extra security as a selling point of linux wont make no one switch those few who do could end up worse off than ever. 

 

As you say you want the best possible security go with openbsd. 

 

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

On 7/27/2018 at 1:45 PM, nanaki said:

I have heard of docx issues before between ms office and open office/libre office in the past and it has been one way or the other. Most just work around it by exporting to a different format both can use and thats it. 

Oh right, I had similar problem in Libre 4 days, Libre 6 seems a lot better, worth a try if you are interested.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

On 7/27/2018 at 2:32 PM, Dat Guy said:

 

The FSF disagrees.

Link please, I am curious which Linux distribution they are referring to.

[Dat Guy]

Ubuntu, mostly. 

[newgeneral10]

On 7/19/2018 at 7:29 PM, firelighter487 said:

i've had Fedora brick on me, to the point where i couldn't install software. that happened after running updates. whenever i tried installing stuff i would get errors. 

 

i expect bricking after updating from Windows, not Linux. 

I actually just had that happen to me too, but I was running Rawhide soooo I guess I asked for it.  It was either dnf or python3.7.  I just booted from a live Fedora, downgraded the two problem children, rebooted, upgraded, and was good as gold!

[TopHatProductions115]

You should try Manjaro sometime. It's nice  

[ViscountStyx]

Why Linux?

 

Because I don't have to report to a large corporation how many minutes i've had a photo viewer open.

 

Madness!

 

(here's a full list)

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/windows-diagnostic-data

[ViscountStyx]

And then I looked at the windows forum threads on LTT

 

 

[DimasRMDO]

On 04/08/2018 at 5:18 AM, TopHatProductions115 said:

You should try Manjaro sometime. It's nice  

I used to dislike Manjaro and idolized Arch.

After installing Arch on multiple PCs and looking at the time wasted typing all those terminal commands (including troubleshooting when something doesn't work). Now I'm just another Manjaro and ArchBang user

My longest time to install Arch was like 6 freaking hours (looking at you too Gentoo).

[ViscountStyx]

48 minutes ago, DimasRMDO said:

another Manjaro and ArchBang user

 

awww now I miss crunchbang again   Managed to go a full month without mourning it.