An ordinary user's perspective of Linux (was Re: Make consolehelper more liske sudo?)

[Jason Knight]

Andy Hudson wrote:

> Parameshwara Bhat wrote:
>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> I am a curious member of this list and an ordinary user of Linux ; 
>> so  excuse me for breaking into a learned debate.I want to give a 
>> perspective  of my end,following the threads between Havoc, Matthew 
>> and David.
>>
>> [...Snippedified by Jason Knight...]
>>
>> When will Linux and Fedora learn to respect me and users like me or 
>> will  it at all? Answer to that will be the key to whether it can 
>> really compete  with MS
>>
>> Parameshwara Bhat  
>
>
Parameshwara,


Linux Distributions are multi-user systems, Microsoft Windows is a 
single user system, that has attempted to add multi-user features.

root is necessary because it is the administrator's account, a multiuser 
system, to remain secure, must have it implemented in this way.

Most if not all, this includes myself, will enccourage you to only use 
the administrator account to perform administrator functions, and to use 
a basic user account for day to day activities. I do this, and simply 
have no problems with it.

The separation of Root and User adds an excellent layer of security, if 
you as a user cannot install any software, that means good software, and 
bad software. Then there is less risk to the system, that way, everyone 
will not pay for your mistake.

There is little that will stop you from running in root all of the time. 
But this is grossly insecure. Although most avid linux users that have 
used windows for more than 5-10 minutes would describe Windows as 
Grossly Insecure.

If you decide to run as root all the time, you will have to make sure 
that you have a good firewall, a good anti-virus, you will need to keep 
up to date on all the security issues, you will have to maintain and 
keep a very close eye on all logs etc... Why not just use windows? No 
one is stopping you from doing this?

I think linux should always and forever put security before useability. 
Linux is not the lazy man's OS. If you wish to be lazy, by all means use 
windows, or run as root all the time.

You may expect that the world, and all the people in it should spend 
their time making your life easier, but I do not think that is a good 
way to look at it, and I do not think that  you will get very far with 
such an idea.

This is the application of the windows mentality, i.e. Yeah Oz is really 
a great place to live, but pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

You can please half the people all the time or all of the people half of 
the time. I think Linux shouldn't try to please anyone, I think it 
should simply work well/good/better than last time, allow distributions 
to decide the level of useability they plan to provide. I don't believe 
that Distrobutions should sacrifice security to obscure Linux from the 
user in an effort to make their computer experience uber-pointy-clicky. 
Thats not interaction, thats not abstraction, and it will never lead to 
satisfaction.

Just my .02 on the subject

Jason Knight





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