How best (BUT WHY) get rid of SELinux?

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 25 September 2007, Paul Shaffer wrote:
>The whole premise of this thead is just absolutely ridiculous.  A naive user
> has an issue of some sort, immediately throws the baby out with the bath
> and then every other uninformed Linux using imbecile on this list joins in
> the stupidity.

Yeah, well I'm one of those idijits you're referring to.  I have a problem, so 
since its a redhat/fedora problem AFAIK, I bring it here, and get told to 
take my problems down the hall to selinux_101's list.

I do, get told the boilerplate answer to touch /.autorelabel and reboot.  I do 
so, several times.  I disable it in etc/sysconfig control file, doesn't help.  
No log now, but it doesn't help, I still cannot use any usb or serial ports 
on the machine except the mouse & keyboard.  Finally, Stephen Smalley says to 
add  'selinux=0' to the kernel line in grub.  Bingo, everything works.

I update from FC2 to FC6, same basic problem in that the machine can't do its 
job(s) although I can print from FC6 which the FC2 version denied, so once 
again that option gets added to my grub.conf.  And everything Just Works(TM).

Now, I'm mature enough (73 in a week) to know that the only way to shake out 
the bugs is to run it, which is nice for those who have the luxury of 
saying "hey, that didn't work", and possibly the programming smarts to dig 
into it and figure it out, or a way around it.  But I still have to talk to 
the hardware to get the job done & that's where it was killing me.

I found a couple of days ago that it may actually be usable in F7 on my 
laptop, which since I'm home, isn't getting a lot of use.  So progress it 
would appear is being made.  OTOH, I haven't plugged in the Maxtor OneTouch 
III usb drive to see if I can make a backup either.

I don't think the descriptive name calling is all that intelligent either and 
I've been subjected to quite a bit of it, both because I do all this as root 
including running x, and selinux is disabled.  So what, I'm behind an x86 box 
running dd-wrt.  But I'm the only one who uses this machine, even the missus 
can't seem to get the hang of running a mouse to read her email and she is a 
retired school teacher (music).

Contrary to the likes of Craig White for instance, who has been pretty abusive 
at times while also occasionally being helpfull, there are two (or more) 
sides to the story.  Just don't expect me to suffer in total silence.  
My 'field of expertise' so to speak, is electronics, and I might have fixed 
the first tv your great grandfather had in 1947 when it quit.  I write bash 
scripts these days, but if any of you came up to x86 boxes via the motorola 
route, coco's and amiga's, its entirely possible you may have run code I 
wrote all those years ago.  But that's background info and no big deal today.

>  Does anybody here really believe the NSA spent how many years (?) and
> untold millions of dollars developing the technology for no good reason? 
> Amazing, just amazing.  Shocked? Maybe.  Disappointed?  Yes.  Surprised? 
> No.

They may well have.  Possibly something of value for my tax dollar.  But until 
it was foisted off on us without enough docs to wrap an aspirin tablet up, 
actual, in the real world usability was apparently never a consideration.  
Now, with all the hoorah, yelling and screaming, (you would think we're 
breeding elephants or something here) that aspect of it is finally being 
addressed, which is a good thing I guess.  As far as the docs are concerned, 
it tends to pi$$ me off a little when those docs are A) locked up in a book, 
and B) the book is a special order item at my nearest Borders, 35 miles up 
the interstate from me, and C) no doubt costs money.  I don't get up there 
more than 3 or 4 times a year.

TANSTAAFL...

But, until it actually saves my butt, I will continue to contend that it is a 
solution in search of a problem 99% of us (with sense enough to setup a 
firewall/gateway separate from the work boxes) don't have.

[...]

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
I never pray before meals -- my mom's a good cook.