The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[ProudSkibidiTolietAryan]

I've heard of it. Haven't tried it myself. Probably won't, as wine currently is sufficient for my needs.

Sounds like a really good sales pitch, but from going through half of Mutas vid about it, the set-up does not look nomrie-proof at all to me.

But I appreciate their attempt to document and spoonfeed the instructions as much as they have.

btw
Does anybody have an educated opinion on if WINE has a realistic potential to one day refine it's functionality so well that almost all Windows apps could seamlessly work on Linux as if native?
Or are there some known hopelessly hard limitations? I mean this for just for productivity apps, because the kernel-level anti-cheat problem for gaming seems like one such hard limitation.

Im watching it thinking there has to be some type of catch.
it seemed to good to be true can anyone who used the software tell me if its going to be the next wine killer(Maybe not killer)

 

[ScooterL]

I have had a terrible experience with Linux every time I have tried it but I can't even begin to explain how little I want to deal with Windows 11.

Try it again, it might be better now. It's at least ten years since I last tried to use Linux on my main computer, and I gave up on it. But Windows 11 pushed me over the edge, I've wiped it from my laptop, set up Linux with XFCE, and I am really impressed with how usable it is now. And my crackly bluetooth speaker works fine now. And best of all, Pajeet can no longer put MS Teams in my startup items during a mandatory update.

 

[cigint]

It's not about usage, it's about security, so someone hacking your web browser doesn't easily gain admin rights

Many applications create an account to run things as. ... There's a reason why on a typical system user UIDs start at 1000.

Yes, and that reason is that it's a nice round number.

Privilege separation via dedicated accounts for daemons and other processes is not a brilliant security feature of POSIX, but rather a vestigial remnant from a time when it was essentially a portable lowest-common-denominator hack way of doing it in a very disjointed Unix universe, that would work on many systems. Do not derive from us still living with it, ex post facto, that this is a necessary way or the best way to manage access to ring 0, devices or files.

But I'm willing to drop the subject, since there is a gulf here that's not going to be bridged by anything I write.

 

[Spilled Spaghett]

How is it that yesterday everything works, and today with literally no changes to my computer something has broken? I am about to burn incense and pray to the machine spirit because clearly they are sentient and they hate me. Or this is an intervention and my PC does not want me to play World of Warcraft.

 

[Angie Wormwood]

Yes, and that reason is that it's a nice round number.

No, the reason is that it's sufficiently high to avoid collisions. Anything with a lower UID than UID_MIN as defined would be assumed to be a service account, daemon account, or some other user that would be assumed to have no interactive capability. That would give any multi-user system the ability to create a *lot* of accounts for this purpose without infringing upon normal user accounts. Even with a default UID_MAX of 65k, 1k is basically nothing, and it can go even higher -- unsigned 32-bit integer has a maximum of 4.2bn, which makes even using something with odd translation like Windows SIDs into UIDs via direct link or intermediary easy.

Privilege separation via dedicated accounts for daemons and other processes is not a brilliant security feature of POSIX, but rather a vestigial remnant from a time when it was essentially a portable lowest-common-denominator hack way of doing it in a very disjointed Unix universe, that would work on many systems. Do not derive from us still living with it, ex post facto, that this is a necessary way or the best way to manage access to ring 0, devices or files.

Lowest-common-denominator hack? You're talking about the ability for simple file permission handling but also anything stored in userland like memory, let alone per-user restrictions set like open file descriptors or running processes. That's part of the point of having separate accounts for system functions.

But I'm willing to drop the subject, since there is a gulf here that's not going to be bridged by anything I write.

You're right, because the gulf of your understanding from what reality is is huge.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Privilege separation via dedicated accounts for daemons and other processes is not a brilliant security feature of POSIX, but rather a vestigial remnant from a time when it was essentially a portable lowest-common-denominator hack way of doing it in a very disjointed Unix universe, that would work on many systems. Do not derive from us still living with it, ex post facto, that this is a necessary way or the best way to manage access to ring 0, devices or files.

What do you propose as another way do do all of this? I've never really cared to learn that much about the details of how windows handles this stuff. But it looks to me like they are just using something similar ideas. Just not the specific unix like way of doing it.

Did you propose another way privilege separation should be achieved, and I missed it?

You can easily add other methods of isolating processes on top of using different users, and groups also, like using different namespaces, using selinux, running daemons in chroots. There is a lot you can do, and running things as another user is just the bare minimum, but it allows at least a bit of separation. I would certainly rather keep those around in linux. I don't really see what would be gained by not having these, and I especially don't know what the suggested alternative is.

 

[Creative Username]

I have had a terrible experience with Linux every time I have tried it

you might want to try it again. it has gotten better over time (as another poster explained) but it's also a bit different than windows (both in design and in the cultural expectations of how you're supposed to use and maintain it) and you will need to unlearn certain things for the best experience
sometimes this takes multiple attempts. i am a former windows rape victim and a couple of my first real gnu/linux systems were enormous disasters

I'm getting a new SSD soon and I'll probably just throw Mint on that, dual boot it with Windows 10 on another SSD, and then slowly phase out the latter.

great idea, you'll have a nice safety net to return to if you fuck up with mint somehow

Try it again, it might be better now. It's at least ten years since I last tried to use Linux on my main computer, and I gave up on it. But Windows 11 pushed me over the edge, I've wiped it from my laptop, set up Linux with XFCE, and I am really impressed with how usable it is now. And my crackly bluetooth speaker works fine now. And best of all, Pajeet can no longer put MS Teams in my startup items during a mandatory update.

general gnu/linux usability has gone way up since 2015. it's already practically grandma-proof and it's almost certainly going to keep getting better
especially since pajeet never redeems your default browser settings

Did you propose another way privilege separation should be achieved, and I missed it?

no he did not he is trotting out the old "UNIX LE OLD AND LE BAD" and will be mysteriously silent when people ask him to point to how exactly windows does it better (spoiler: it doesn't, at least not really, it has the same users-and-groups-based paradigm except it primarily relies on pain-in-the-ass but slightly theoretically better access control lists (and actually most unixes do have this kind of thing these days, but--and this should tell you something--i have never heard of anybody actually using them) instead of the usual user/group/three-digit-octal-number model of unix)
in fact, user-based privilege isolation, in tandem with a few other things, forms the main security apparatus used to separate and tardwrangle all the apps in android

You can easily add other methods of isolating processes on top of using different users, and groups also, like using different namespaces, using selinux, running daemons in chroots. There is a lot you can do, and running things as another user is just the bare minimum, but it allows at least a bit of separation. I would certainly rather keep those around in linux. I don't really see what would be gained by not having these, and I especially don't know what the suggested alternative is, and what would actually be gained by not having them.

most people just use these instead of users. seccomp and namespaces are pretty tight and they also don't require root like creating users does

 

[Zeftax]

practically grandma-proof

Mint has been literally grandma-proof for a few years now at the very least. My grandmas' windows laptop kept getting broken and I had to to keep fixing it. One day (maybe ~4 years ago?) I got fed up with constantly fixing windows and just put linux mint on there, the frequency of breakages decreased maybe tenfold. I mind you that she could not tell you the difference between email and the internet, and thinks closing the lid is the same as shutting it down (this is the one non-grandma-proof aspect of mint, especially when you need to explain to her how to restart the device over a phone call).

 

[The Noise]

no he did not he is trotting out the old "UNIX LE OLD AND LE BAD" and will be mysteriously silent when people ask him to point to how exactly windows does it better (spoiler: it doesn't, at least not really, it has the same users-and-groups-based paradigm except it primarily relies on pain-in-the-ass but slightly theoretically better access control lists (and actually most unixes do have this kind of thing these days, but--and this should tell you something--i have never heard of anybody actually using them) instead of the usual user/group/three-digit-octal-number model of unix)
in fact, user-based privilege isolation, in tandem with a few other things, forms the main security apparatus used to separate and tardwrangle all the apps in android

Unix was pretty shitty in a lot of respects in its infancy, but I don't feel like that should be used as a knock against modern Unix systems. It'd be like if I said "Windows 10 sucks because Windows 3.1 didn't have a registry." Besides that, Unix has been used to do great things. Apple took Darwin and made it into the most stable, retard-proof system on the planet, for example.

Mint has been literally grandma-proof for a few years now at the very least. My grandmas' windows laptop kept getting broken and I had to to keep fixing it. One day (maybe ~4 years ago?) I got fed up with constantly fixing windows and just put linux mint on there, the frequency of breakages decreased maybe tenfold. I mind you that she could not tell you the difference between email and the internet, and thinks closing the lid is the same as shutting it down (this is the one non-grandma-proof aspect of mint, especially when you need to explain to her how to restart the device over a phone call).

Windows is shockingly inept as a laptop OS. All of the really bad problems I've had with Windows have happened exclusively on laptops.

 

[Creative Username]

thinks closing the lid is the same as shutting it down

an interesting observation to make here is that gnu/linux is typically much better at handling this form of abuse than windows could dream of being

(this is the one non-grandma-proof aspect of mint, especially when you need to explain to her how to restart the device over a phone call)

note for the windoids in the thread: this does not mean he's explaining a command over the phone. you can restart a mint system by going into the application launcher (read: start menu) and hitting the restart button. iiuc this process is exactly identical to how it works in windows (modulo that weird thing windows does where it says it's "updating" for half an hour,) and grandmas have a similar amount of trouble with it

side note for op: you might want to try configuring it to shut down when the laptop lid is closed. it's possible to do this and you (and your grandma) might like it better
anyway it seems it's not entirely grandma-proof but with a handful of grandma-specific tweaks it could probably be literally grandma-proof

It'd be like if I said "Windows 10 sucks because Windows 3.1 didn't have a registry."

having a registry is generally considered a negative operating system feature, even among people who use and enjoy windows (especially if they have had to manually edit it)

Windows is shockingly inept as a laptop OS. All of the really bad problems I've had with Windows have happened exclusively on laptops.

tbh i don't think laptops run any os well. most laptops are just inherently cursed somehow

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

and actually most unixes do have this kind of thing these days, but--and this should tell you something--i have never heard of anybody actually using them) instead of the usual user/group/three-digit-octal-number model of unix

Yeah. I know linux for sure has ACL's. At one point there was something specific thing I was using the setfacl command for. Really I probably could have found another way to get aroud what I was doing. But that worked. I really haven't looked into ACL's on linux besides a surface level glance. I don't think they provide a ton of extra utility over normal unix permissions. If I'm going outside of those, I think some kind of MAC, is better if you are going outside of the standard way of doing things.

Actually looking at linux ACL's again. It looks like the main point is literally multiuser systems. And they are kind of completely useless for a single user desktop. With just a root and normal user. Where just having the normal user group and other is perfectly fine.

tbh i don't think laptops run any os well. most laptops are just inherently cursed somehow

I think linux is about as good as you can get for a laptop OS. Besides apple, with their macbooks being purpose made to work together, but I also doubt you will have a great time with mac on any laptop outside of a macbook.

But as far as linux goes on laptops. Especially in comparison to windows. It's as close to perfect as I could hope for from my experience. Especially because a lot of the time you are just using an IGPU. Everything just works, outside of installing completely libre distros that won't have any of the proprietary firmware needed for wifi, or other bits like that. But any of the normal distros. I have never had any hardware related issues on them that I can think of. You also get the benefit of running a very light system if you choose to, lighter than windows could ever dream to be at this point. That definitely helps on a laptop, even if that doesn't matter that much on the desktop.

 

[Creative Username]

If I'm going outside of those, I think some kind of MAC, is better if you are going outside of the standard way of doing things.

i like capability-based security. can't fuck with unintended files if you don't have handles to them and therefore can't even refer to them

Actually looking at linux ACL's again. It looks like the main point is literally multiuser systems. And they are kind of completely useless for a single user desktop. With just a root and normal user. Where just having the normal user group and other is perfectly fine.

with supplementary user groups you could probably do 99% of the things acls are ever used for (except for things like allowing certain people to view and edit the important files and allowing a certain other group to just see them and not letting anybody else see it)
want the bean counter to be able to edit shit in /var/finances? add him to the beancounters group that owns everything he should be able to edit in there

 

[Akerman]

tbh i don't think laptops run any os well. most laptops are just inherently cursed somehow

I think a large part of what makes Windows suck ass on laptops and in general is how it handles driver management. I don't know why it is so shit, all I know as an end user is that it clearly is. I recently had to install Windows on my laptop to update my BIOS, and I was hit with a barrage of issues. The touchpad barely worked. It was just sluggish, so I was obviously missing a driver. I tried to hunt down the driver for a few hours, went into the classic Windows maze of GUIs from different eras to no avail. I eventually gave up and dug out some USB mouse instead.

I have installed a bunch of distros on that very same laptop, and the same touchpad as mentioned before has genuinely never had any issues on any of them. It always works out of the box every time using whatever driver is in the kernel. It also works well in both installed and Live ISO environments, meanwhile the touchpad was acting even worse during the Windows installation process. I could barely move the mouse. It honestly is baffling to me how bad driver management still is on Windows, and don't get me started on GPU driver updates. Shit is insane. I have had so many regressions & black screens now after updates on my Windows partition that I am just doing clean installs every time by default. Meanwhile on Linux I have only had a single regression that was fixed with a downgrade of the packages, reboot and it booted back to the previous version cleanly with no issues.

Maybe I have just had catastrophic luck, but looking at driver update threads after any driver update on Windows I doubt it.

 

[Curry Teafag]

Laptops are a classic YMMV thing. On my laptops, Windows has been far less of a headache than Linux.

 

[TerribleUser09]

I think a large part of what makes Windows suck ass on laptops and in general is how it handles driver management. I don't know why it is so shit, all I know as an end user is that it clearly is. I recently had to install Windows on my laptop to update my BIOS, and I was hit with a barrage of issues. The touchpad barely worked. It was just sluggish, so I was obviously missing a driver. I tried to hunt down the driver for a few hours, went into the classic Windows maze of GUIs from different eras to no avail. I eventually gave up and dug out some USB mouse instead.

I had likewise experiences but on a flip side.

Back in the days, I had Asus laptop with Vista installed. It worked fine. It was sluggish but it got job done. After Vista I have installed Ubuntu and the sheer numbers of issues with drivers and unsupported hardware was appalling. Built-in webcam was flipped upside-down and there was nothing I could do about it. The touchpad had different sensor issues and used to teleport mouse pinter all over the desktop. Boot section was regularly raped by-who-knows-what. Integrated Intel graphic card was shit on Windows but on Linux it was even shittier. Something that run flawlessly on DirectX 9.0c (UT 2004) was stuttering on Linux despite installed free-open drivers. WiFi card got raped every few months after major update which required some in-depth knowledge about script and settings.ini edit.

 

[Angie Wormwood]

with supplementary user groups you could probably do 99% of the things acls are ever used for (except for things like allowing certain people to view and edit the important files and allowing a certain other group to just see them and not letting anybody else see it)

ACLs solve a small gap in security practices. If you assign a user to a secondary group that has access to files, or the ability to run certain commands as sudo, that gives them wholesale access. If you have, say, a user named targetuser, and they have three directories in their homedir called files, accounting, and legal, but you want to give a group of users access to accounting and NOT files or legal, you run into ACLs, create a new group for that one use case and shuffling users around (and then future user management when people inevitably leave/join), or grant wholesale access and take a risk.

That said, they come with a number of drawbacks that you have to be careful on. No explicit inheritance, and no reverse inheritance, so if you modify something you have to reset permissions for child objects. And the use of chmod/chown can end up whacking ACLs, but if you have a backup reference it's a simple restore, just an annoying thing.

 

[Creative Username]

ACLs solve a small gap in security practices. If you assign a user to a secondary group that has access to files, or the ability to run certain commands as sudo, that gives them wholesale access. If you have, say, a user named targetuser, and they have three directories in their homedir called files, accounting, and legal, but you want to give a group of users access to accounting and NOT files or legal, you run into ACLs, create a new group for that one use case and shuffling users around (and then future user management when people inevitably leave/join), or grant wholesale access and take a risk.

no, you have the respective folders owned by the groups accounting, files, and legal. if you want somebody to only have access to accounting, you simply add the accounting group to their supplementary groups
also i am aware that there are 5000 ways users and groups fail and you need acls (the "99%" remark was present for a reason) but i think this case is not one of them

 

[Tremolo]

having a registry is generally considered a negative operating system feature

Why would having a registry editor be worse than not having one? Is this a criticism of the layout or just its actual existence as a feature.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Why would having a registry editor be worse than not having one? Is this a criticism of the layout or just its actual existence as a feature.

Why is having a gigantic, opaque, easily corrupted binary blob for every bit of config worse than not having a gigantic, opaque, easily corrupted binary blob for every bit of config? Beats me!

 

[Creative Username]

Why is having a gigantic, opaque, easily corrupted binary blob for every bit of config worse than not having a gigantic, opaque, easily corrupted binary blob for every bit of config? Beats me!

for me the real problem is that it reinvents the concept of a hierarchical file system for basically no reason at all
gigantic opaque easily corruptable binary blobs are simply a normal part of computing and we use them every day whether we like it or not
it's just usually going to be a well-designed, battle-tested file system and not some hairbrained replacement for .ini files that poorly-written applications tend to stick in places that they should keep their filthy hands off of