Sudo=Bad Security!

[ronacc]

I use Opera mostly but that is a matter of taste I also have quite a few others that I use from time to time ,konq , galeon , firefox , mozilla , ie4linux(ugh) , and still more. Mapquest wasn't jumping around this morning but the ads had changed , I think it was one of the flash ads that was causing the problem.

note to advertisers the more intrusive , flashier and annoying your ads the LESS likely I am to buy the product or anything else the compay that placed the ad makes.

permissions are necessary for security but there should be a consistant and easy way to deal with them. Once I make the conscious decission to "go root" I should be able to totaly destroy my system with a mouse click , when I knowingly choose that option the responsibility is mine .When I am in a user console or file manager protect me , when I chose to open a root console or FM and then shoot myself in the foot , oh well OUCH. A system that makes me jump through too many hoops dosn't suit my tastes.

I am evaluating Ubuntu as a possibile distro to windows using freinds aI am trying to wean away from MS . All things considered it is probably the one I would recommend .

[aysiu]

Heres an example I was going to copy some mp3 audio files to an SD card , nautilius refused to erase some of the old files to make room (insufficent permissions) kill that (user) nautilus , gkudo sudo nautilus it still wont do it , same reason BAH try root konq same result BAH again

Bah! That's not normal behavior.

Well, if SuSE works for you, use it. I've never experienced a file I couldn't erase with gksudo nautilus or kdesu konqueror. You know, you can actually enable the root account in Ubuntu, too, if you think that'll make a difference.

[akak8ty]

well this morning nothing was jumping, now everything is jumping, including this page.

My gut feeling is....REINSTALL. Or, the machine has been very heavily used for a couple years and its gonna blow up. haha

I also have a copy of edubuntu ready to go. I was just shy of space for both of them.
I have a 40 gig 2nd hard drive drive I used for my photo's, so I moved them to another machine running windows on my home network.

My little 4 year old grand niece is here often and is getting quite confident with herself on the computer. I am quite confident she can't do anything I can't fix- so far so good.
I Love the puzzles, being a fan of Fine art, she can put together the 6-8 piece Degas, while --listening, um, no- sound issue- must fix.
We talk about the "picture" and who painted it.
She is a whiz at the memory games- its jaw dropping to watch. This accomplishment I'll gloat over a little... yet she right took to it, I only planted the seed, and initially guided the hand
Any how, I like EU's approach to education, but I said that already.
We learned about money in Euros in the suite gcompris which won't do her any good here- but perhaps she sensed its worth more because she took every last coin out of my hands to put them in a safe place. Thats my girl. Aiding and abedding my escape from america.

[ronacc]

I will retry both gksudo nautilius and kdesudo knoqueror perhaps I missed something , I do make mistakes. I will also enable a root acct , I hadn't looked into that. as I said above I am mainly learning/evaluating Ubuntu as an alternatve to windows for my non geek friends. I will also keep it around on my machine for the things it does well . I love synaptic as a package manager ,Suse needs help in that area. Yast is great at system configuration but as a package manager is at best, terrible and at worst ( as in the current release ) pretty much a disaster ,installing even a "standard" package can lead to dependency hell , and a "non official" package just grab the alkaseltzer AND the bourboun (not necessarly in that order).Smart is looking good but has a way to go to catch up to synaptic. I like the way very many things "just work" in ubuntu I havent experienced many of the problems I see posted in the forums , mabye just luck, maybe a little more carefull. First impressions do count. I don,t mind keeping more than one distro on my machine ( 3 right now) hard drive space is cheap these days,and using each for what it is best at.Trying to be "all things to all people " is one of the things that makes windows so bad ( and bloated).

[ronacc]

akak8ty could be your monitor , I was getting random trash occasionaly that completly cleared up when I sprung for an LCD , the previous was a crt and loosing sync is one of the common ways they start to fail, that could make the display " jumpy" if it starts after the machine has been on for a while its probably heat related check your fans and vents and heatsinks.

[aysiu]

If you're trying to "evaluate Ubuntu as an alternate to Windows for [your] non-geek friends," consider Mepis. It's based on Ubuntu, includes proprietary software and codecs, and has a root login enabled instead of Ubuntu's sudo business.

[ronacc]

Thanks for the tip , I have looked at mephis a while back , my "first impression" was that it was not as polished as Ubuntu. I'll see if there is a release newer than the one I looked at.I think we may be getting some "converts" when Vista hits the fan.Right now Ubuntu looks like the best bet for soon to be exwindows users.

[TheWizzard]

The point is most people will stick with defaults, they don't have time to secure everything and by giving every user root privs once they crack that users password is asking for problems....

exactly the reason the ubunto approach is more secure

[TheWizzard]

Are you capable of being nice? I've yet to hear it- and don't bother responding. There are far more pleasant people here to talk to.

aysiu is one of the nicest, helpful persons on this forum. what's your problem

on topic: there's always a trade off between security and userfriendliness. and i think ubuntu is doing a good job. basically thee are 3 kinds of security treads:
System: you want your system to operate OK
Files: you want your files to be OK
Privacy: you don't want strangers to be able to see your files

i think the bottom line is to encrypt your files and to make regular back-ups

[BoneKracker]

...and you want timely security patches to protect you from increasingly frequent zero-day style exploits.

I saw a detailed (if somewhat non-scientific) analysis of security patch timeliness a few months ago that showed ubuntu is the fastest of the major distributions (and, surprisingly, that Suse pretty much blows dead moose).

Windows isn't even in the same ballpark, with something like 20% of the known exploits remaining unpatched at any given time, in many cases months and even years after their discovery (compared to a number that rounds off to zero for Linux).

When it comes to selecting a distribution, security is a primary consideration. But I worry less about configuration (which I am happy to do) and worry more about software quality and patch timeliness (which are beyond my control).

Check it out here (I know it's probably inaccurate, but it's an important facet to consider):
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com...202417,00.html