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Canonical Developer Warns About Banking With Linux Mint

Posted by samzenpus on from the family-fight dept.

sfcrazy writes "Ubuntu developer Oliver Grawert does not prefer to do online banking with Linux Mint. In the official mailing list of the distribution, Ubuntu developers stated that the popular Ubuntu derivative is a vulnerable system and people shouldn't go for online banking on it. One of the Ubuntu developers, Oliver Grawert, originally pointed out that it is not necessary that security updates from Ubuntu get down to Linux Mint users since changes from X.Org, the kernel, Firefox, the boot-loader, and other core components are blocked from being automatically upgraded." Clement Lefebvre, the Linux Mint project founder, has since made a statement and confirmed that Oliver Grawert seems "more opinionated than knowledgeable" adding "the press blew what he said out of proportion."

8 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Lots of this lately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if you can't say how good your product is. tell everyone how shitty everyone elses product is.

  2. Missing context by Fwipp · · Score: 5, Informative

    TFS makes it sounds like it's a long article about how Linux Mint is insecure.

    Here's the entirety of his commentary:

    Do you think that Linux Mint is a vulnerable system ? Really ?

    https://github.com/linuxmint/mintupdate/blob/master/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/rules

    this is the list of packages it will never update, instead of just
    integrating changes properly with the packagaes in the ubuntu archive
    they instead suppress doing (security) updates at all for them.

    i would say forcefully keeping a vulnerable kernel browser or xorg in
    place instead of allowing the provided security updates to be installer
    makes it a vulnerable system, yes

    i personally wouldn't do online banking with it ;)

    ciao
            oli

    1. Re:Missing context by Rob+Simpson · · Score: 5, Informative

      Levels 4 and 5 ("unsafe", in that they may cause things to stop working) are not automatically selected when updating - which is fine with me. Video drivers may need to be reinstalled when performing a kernel update, for example. My issue is that they are not visible by default. It's easy to change in the preferences (there are "safe" and "visible" checkmarks for each level, so I have it set up so I can see if there is a kernel update available and select it when I want to install it) but novice users may miss this.

  3. This is why... by sgage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... I don't want anything more to do with Canonical, or Ubuntu, or Mint, or any of that lot. I'm sticking with Debian. I'm sure it has its problems and all, but at least the politics seem to remain mostly internal. These public pissing matches between distros just seem so counter-productive. But since I've been using Linux (1998), it seems to be a constant. Ego issues? I don't know. I don't particularly care. It's just so boring and off-putting.

  4. Re:+1 Article Troll by squisher · · Score: 5, Informative

    While the article may not have very diplomatic wording, the essence is true: I installed Linux Mint about a year ago, and liked it. But I had to switch to a different distribution after a couple of months because there were virtually NO updates coming in at all. I'd say that Ubuntu updates like crazy, but no updates at all in several months makes it very likely that they just don't have enough manpower to provide such a service. And that does make your distribution vulnerable. My experience may be outdated, but I'd bet it's still the same given this article...

  5. Re:+1 Article Troll by wile_e8 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read the statement from Clem in the summary. Linux Mint updates just as fast as Ubuntu on most things, but has certain updates that could potentially crash otherwise stable machines disabled as a default. If you are really concerned about these to avoid vulnerability, they are easy to enable. Nothing about Linux Mint updates are slow after you enable them.

  6. Re:+1 Article Troll by exomondo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is these are labeled Unsafe Packages and Dangerous Packages, now with those descriptions what user is going to say "yes I want those"? It states that these can affect stability, which is true, but leaves out that they could be critical security patches, which is also true.

    The real beneficial fix to end users here would be to state the whole truth about these updates.

  7. End of the world? by dshk · · Score: 5, Insightful
    We are talking about a short, almost personal comment on the developer's mailing list of Ubuntu:

    i personally wouldn't do online banking with it ;)

    Compare this with the Slashdot article title:

    Canonical Developer Warns About Banking With Linux Mint

    Whether he is technically right, or not, I find it disgusting that such a side note becomes news on Slashdot.

    By the way, the subject was another new distribution based on Ubuntu, similar to Mint, therefore the Ubuntu developer actually encouraged an Ubuntu derivative.