All filesystems get fragmented, but some are slightly more intelligent about managing it than others (e2fs is better than FAT, but still susceptible, just like NTFS or any other fs). Yes, there are e2fs defrag tools:)
By "plan your configuration accordingly", I would interpret this to mean putting/,/home,/usr/local and/var on their own seperate partitions. Putting/usr on its own partition is a good idea too, in case of disk problems preventing the root fs from being mounted. Also, seperate partitions allow different mount options (eg, nosuid, read only) which can be useful from a security standpoint.
Tar up a copy of/etc before you blow things away (store in your home directory), and you're pretty much golden. Obviously if you accidentally format the wrong partition you're screwed, but you have backups anyway, right?:)
You have a six digit UID, and are still here - and slashdot has been this bad, if not worse for nearly a decade now. There are more important things in life than bitching about an apostrophe in the contraction of it is...
The idea was, java bytecode might be used as an intermediate language, so that a manufacturer of proprietary hardware could write a proprietary bytecode-to-machine language compiler for their architecture, and then take advantage of the nice GCC toolchain to promote their proprietary stuff.
So instead, they can just for example write an x86 front end for their hardware and recompile/interpret that at runtime and leverage the gcc toolchain? Like Itanium perhaps? Or even modern x86 cpus...
Braindamaged thinking if you ask me, I mean, they could do that with any of the platforms GCC officially supports, not just the Java virtual machine...
How's this for wierd... I couldn't (well, didn't try very hard, as far as what I want to do is concerned, XP = win2k + bloat + cleartype, which appears to be included in some form, in recent nvidia drivers) get XP installed on my system to a SATA disk. Yes, i'm sure there's a work-around, however the work-around I used was to simply install Win2k.
My question is why the hell should win2k work fine with that configuration, and XP broken? Microsoft tell me that XP is faster and more reliable, easier to use, etc:D
I wasn't intending to list a full set of tasks that require root (that is beyond the scope of this discussion), they were merely simple examples.
Sudo su - does run as root, yes, however you're spending the *bare minimum* of time running as root to do whatever it is you need to do - when the command sudo su - user completes, you're actually running commands in that user's security context. If you do su - to get yourself a root shell and run everything as root, you're susceptible to root level compromise from any buffer overflows in any of the software you run that accepts data from external sources.
If you don't have sudo, and have root, you should really install it.
I've been using "firefox" since before it was called firefox, back in 2002. I forget what it was called back then, but "Phoenix" seems to ring a bell for some reason.
Hence, I'd consider myself a "long term firefox user":D
It was like a stripped down mozilla back then, and pretty much still is...
I'm no MS fanboy (check my posting history if you don't believe me), but I found IE7 to be quite fast on my work machine, where I've been early-adopter testing it (we have unix machines for specific tasks, but general desktop/office suite is all MS).
Micorosoft have been patching security for years. They now claim, "Security is job one." Do you believe it? Why would you? I would not trust IE unless it is rewritten from scratch. There is only so many patches you can do.
On the contrary, i would make the additional caveat that i would not trust IE unless it was re-written from scratch *by someone with a good security track record* and peer reviewed. Simply being a re-write won't necessarily make it any better.
There's no limit to what patches can do, you just have to be aggressive with your modifications.
Posted from IE7 on XP SP2, checked as vulnerable (I am at work and using this as a guinea pig machine):D
Its not necessarily your data the intruder is after. I'm quite sure he/she doesn't give a crap about your porn collection or whatever.
In the case of Windows machines, they're usually added to a botnet. Linux machines? The sky's the limit - anonymizing proxy server, platform for launching DOS attacks, spam-relay, etc.
People not considering that angle is exactly why we're got literally millions of windows spam-zombies out there...
As for not needing root for 99.999% of tasks, I suppose if web browsing and solitaire is what you spend your time doing on a computer, you're correct. However, an awful lot (99.999%) of how-tos specifically mention using sudo in them for a reason - it's a pain to administer your system as a non-root user.
Nice try. I used to admin 120 linux machines (each one set up as firewall/http proxy/mail relay/pop server), 3 solaris machines, and around 8 freebsd machines. Pretty much single-handedly for a lot of the time.
You need root for installing software and configuring daemons. That's all. If you need to access another user's files/mail spool, sudo su - user will get you there.
As to your comments regarding sudo... what? You make no sense...
I login and do everything as root on my desktop machine. Without referring to any potential mistakes or accidents, please give me a good reason why I shouldn't use root..
Because an exploit for *any* software you run has full access to your system? If you run as root, the cracker merely needs to alter the execution of your program and they're in with full priviledges.
If you don't run as root, they have a far smaller selection of programs (basically daemons or drivers) that will potentially get them remote/full access if exploited.
How about you turn the question around. Why run as root? You don't need it for 99.999% of tasks, and instead of spending time worrying about what you'll clobber every time you do something as root, spend the 5 seconds typing sudo xxx and your password if you need it?
And once again the "priesthood" image is reenforced. Curse all those "idiots" who bought Visicalc so they couldn't "accomplish anything productive". Same with those business "idiots" that bought the original IBMs, so they too could accomplish nothing "productive". As long as geeks are happy, who gives a fisk about those who really pay the bills so their toys can be cheap.
You misunderstand, either that or have a predetermined agenda...
A neophyte is a neophyte until they learn better, than then from then on until the day they die, they know how to use whatever technology it is we're discussing.
Why cater only to neophytes when people who are actually interested in learning how to use the tools will not be neophytes for the vast majority of the time they spend using it?
I mean (random example), there are excel wizards in my company who can do stuff i can only dream about in excel. Should excel be dumbed down at their expense so I can more easily use the program to add up a couple of rows of numbers? Another example... autocad is hard to use. Should it be turned into something like paint so that any dumbass can use it, but using it for professional level tasks is made more of a pain in the ass?
No.
I'm not sure why you bring up the original IBMs in your argument, as they were much harder to use than modern machines, and the people who decided to learn how to use them had to put in the effort...
We need to get some complete computer neophytes to look at our interfaces, and point out the obvious blind spots we've created for ourselves.
This is a mistake. You get neophytes to design an interface, you'll get something only useful to neophytes who have no idea what they're doing.
People need to accept that using a computer is a *learned* skill, much like driving a car or riding a bike or cooking. There's only so much you can do to simply the tasks involved.
User interfaces should be designed to make common power-user type tasks easier to accomplish for everyone. Not cater to idiots who don't really use it to accomplish anything productive...
Oh and btw... corps/users can't go to VISTA without needing to be re-trained. I've run the beta a bit and its very different to use compared to XP. I certainly found it harder to get my head around than something like Kubuntu...
Vista can't be the beginning of the end for Microsoft - there's nowhere else for customers to go. There is no OS that offers the same level of hardware support, software support or technical support. There's no other operating system that companies can go to without retraining their staff. There's no other operating system that customers want pre-installed on their desktops and laptops, and there's no other operating system for software and hardware companies to design for.
Erm, right. In reality, I find the level of support for Linux to be just as good or superior to the Windows level of support. There's no operating system that end users want preinstalled at the moment because Windows is all they know. Re-training is not much of an issue, as its the applications that users use, and 95% of them don't know how to use anyway, so not knowing how to use linux will make very little difference in any case.
A lot of people/corporations are sticking their heads in teh sand making excuses because they're too lazy/scared to take the risk.
(I'm a current Win2k3 domain admin for ~400-500 users, and ex *nix sysadmin for ~2500 users. Guess which was less pain?:)
I think that in the scheme of things, the difficulty of organising *one* aircraft capable of flying low under radar to deliver a nuclear device pales in comparison to the task of actually developing said nuclear device:D
I agree, their airforce currently isn't much, but I think all this focus on ballistic missiles and concluding a strike is not possible based on that delivery method, and therefore not possible is being a little short-sighted...:)
The hard part is pack a nuke into a missle and have the nuke be able to survive the trip in the missle. So I beleave they have a nuke, but not one thats very usable or deliverable yet. That means we still have time (years even) before he has somthing he can easealy deliver to a target.
Are we forgetting the original US nuclear weapons? Bombs?
Sure, they might not be able to pack a warhead into a missile, but if you've got a sufficiently motivated/suicidal air crew, you could deliver one via bomber, cargo plane, etc...
The sun being the centre of the solar system was once an unsupported opinion before. Just because the masses don't believe something, doesn't mean its incorrect.
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All filesystems get fragmented, but some are slightly more intelligent about managing it than others (e2fs is better than FAT, but still susceptible, just like NTFS or any other fs). Yes, there are e2fs defrag tools :)
By "plan your configuration accordingly", I would interpret this to mean putting /, /home, /usr/local and /var on their own seperate partitions. Putting /usr on its own partition is a good idea too, in case of disk problems preventing the root fs from being mounted. Also, seperate partitions allow different mount options (eg, nosuid, read only) which can be useful from a security standpoint.
Tar up a copy of /etc before you blow things away (store in your home directory), and you're pretty much golden. Obviously if you accidentally format the wrong partition you're screwed, but you have backups anyway, right? :)
My initial post was fairly sarcastic, i was merely playing the role of a user who would take microsofts claims of faster and easier to use to heart :D
Ironically, out of all the OSes I've installed on this box (Win2k, WinXP, FreeBSD 6.x, Ubuntu 6.10), XP was the most awkward to deal with :)
You have a six digit UID, and are still here - and slashdot has been this bad, if not worse for nearly a decade now. There are more important things in life than bitching about an apostrophe in the contraction of it is...
IRAN i think you mean, not IRAQ.
So instead, they can just for example write an x86 front end for their hardware and recompile/interpret that at runtime and leverage the gcc toolchain? Like Itanium perhaps? Or even modern x86 cpus...
Braindamaged thinking if you ask me, I mean, they could do that with any of the platforms GCC officially supports, not just the Java virtual machine...
My question is why the hell should win2k work fine with that configuration, and XP broken? Microsoft tell me that XP is faster and more reliable, easier to use, etc :D
Not that I particularly care, just curious...
Sudo su - does run as root, yes, however you're spending the *bare minimum* of time running as root to do whatever it is you need to do - when the command sudo su - user completes, you're actually running commands in that user's security context. If you do su - to get yourself a root shell and run everything as root, you're susceptible to root level compromise from any buffer overflows in any of the software you run that accepts data from external sources.
If you don't have sudo, and have root, you should really install it.
Hence, I'd consider myself a "long term firefox user" :D
It was like a stripped down mozilla back then, and pretty much still is...
I'm no MS fanboy (check my posting history if you don't believe me), but I found IE7 to be quite fast on my work machine, where I've been early-adopter testing it (we have unix machines for specific tasks, but general desktop/office suite is all MS).
On the contrary, i would make the additional caveat that i would not trust IE unless it was re-written from scratch *by someone with a good security track record* and peer reviewed. Simply being a re-write won't necessarily make it any better.
There's no limit to what patches can do, you just have to be aggressive with your modifications.
Posted from IE7 on XP SP2, checked as vulnerable (I am at work and using this as a guinea pig machine) :D
In the case of Windows machines, they're usually added to a botnet. Linux machines? The sky's the limit - anonymizing proxy server, platform for launching DOS attacks, spam-relay, etc.
People not considering that angle is exactly why we're got literally millions of windows spam-zombies out there...
Nice try. I used to admin 120 linux machines (each one set up as firewall/http proxy/mail relay/pop server), 3 solaris machines, and around 8 freebsd machines. Pretty much single-handedly for a lot of the time.
You need root for installing software and configuring daemons. That's all. If you need to access another user's files/mail spool, sudo su - user will get you there.
As to your comments regarding sudo... what? You make no sense...
Because an exploit for *any* software you run has full access to your system? If you run as root, the cracker merely needs to alter the execution of your program and they're in with full priviledges.
If you don't run as root, they have a far smaller selection of programs (basically daemons or drivers) that will potentially get them remote/full access if exploited.
How about you turn the question around. Why run as root? You don't need it for 99.999% of tasks, and instead of spending time worrying about what you'll clobber every time you do something as root, spend the 5 seconds typing sudo xxx and your password if you need it?
How many kernel exploits have there been in the open-source part of the Linux/FreeBSD kernels in recent years?
Granted, open-source allows you to audit/fix it yourself, but it's not a magic bullet.
You misunderstand, either that or have a predetermined agenda...
A neophyte is a neophyte until they learn better, than then from then on until the day they die, they know how to use whatever technology it is we're discussing.
Why cater only to neophytes when people who are actually interested in learning how to use the tools will not be neophytes for the vast majority of the time they spend using it?
I mean (random example), there are excel wizards in my company who can do stuff i can only dream about in excel. Should excel be dumbed down at their expense so I can more easily use the program to add up a couple of rows of numbers? Another example... autocad is hard to use. Should it be turned into something like paint so that any dumbass can use it, but using it for professional level tasks is made more of a pain in the ass?
No.
I'm not sure why you bring up the original IBMs in your argument, as they were much harder to use than modern machines, and the people who decided to learn how to use them had to put in the effort...
This is a mistake. You get neophytes to design an interface, you'll get something only useful to neophytes who have no idea what they're doing.
People need to accept that using a computer is a *learned* skill, much like driving a car or riding a bike or cooking. There's only so much you can do to simply the tasks involved.
User interfaces should be designed to make common power-user type tasks easier to accomplish for everyone. Not cater to idiots who don't really use it to accomplish anything productive...
Oh and btw... corps/users can't go to VISTA without needing to be re-trained. I've run the beta a bit and its very different to use compared to XP. I certainly found it harder to get my head around than something like Kubuntu...
"95% of them don't know how to use *WINDOWS* anyway" is what i meant to write ;)
Erm, right. In reality, I find the level of support for Linux to be just as good or superior to the Windows level of support. There's no operating system that end users want preinstalled at the moment because Windows is all they know. Re-training is not much of an issue, as its the applications that users use, and 95% of them don't know how to use anyway, so not knowing how to use linux will make very little difference in any case.
A lot of people/corporations are sticking their heads in teh sand making excuses because they're too lazy/scared to take the risk.
(I'm a current Win2k3 domain admin for ~400-500 users, and ex *nix sysadmin for ~2500 users. Guess which was less pain? :)
Care to elaborate? Reasons to go from 2K to XP used to be cleartype and support for the win2k3 adminpak.msi.
I can't think of any reason to go to Vista at all at least until DirectX10 is a requirement.
I agree, their airforce currently isn't much, but I think all this focus on ballistic missiles and concluding a strike is not possible based on that delivery method, and therefore not possible is being a little short-sighted... :)
So you do security updates once a month then?
Are we forgetting the original US nuclear weapons? Bombs?
Sure, they might not be able to pack a warhead into a missile, but if you've got a sufficiently motivated/suicidal air crew, you could deliver one via bomber, cargo plane, etc...
The sun being the centre of the solar system was once an unsupported opinion before. Just because the masses don't believe something, doesn't mean its incorrect.