I have taken exception before and will try to stop the spread of false information once again. At the very least you are spreading misinformation based on your own prejudice whether inadvertent or intentional. It does not matter. It is wrong.
Sudo is different from having a root user and a normal user, but it is no less secure. It prevents many problems and solves administrator's diverse needs without compromising security needs. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. To compare it to Windows is absurd. Windows is unsecure for many reasons, none of which has anything to do with sudo or having a separate root user. You can have a separate administrator with a password in Windows and the security still sucks. There are many abuses and problems that an unwitting ordinary user can inflict upon his system by logging on as root, such as totally destroying it and allowing anyone into the system. Why? Because once you are logged on as root, you are not asked for any more passwords. Anyone can then access your system whether at the keyboard or through the back door and you are skewered. With sudo anyone who wants to do harm will be prompted for a password to make any changes to your computer. I am not saying sudo is better, just that it avoids potential problems. Granted not everyone is moronic enough to log on as root, but some may be. The temptation is strong, especially for someone coming from a Windows background who does not perhaps understand the need for passwords or is perhaps put off by the asking of them in the first place. To make the case that there is something wrong with sudo, you will have to produce hard evidence. In the mean time please desist from spreading false information. This gives the false impression that Ubuntu is less secure which is peculiar because in a contest it has finished first three years in a row beating OS/X and Vista, with its security not yet being defeated by hacking elite over a three day period. That should convince you that sudo is secure and leave it at that. Roy Linux: Fast, friendly, flexible and .... free! Support Open source. <*,)}}+< Only dead fish go with the flow! ----- Original Message ---- From: Gary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, September 2, 2008 10:21:13 PM Subject: [LINUX_Newbies] Re: Hello all : ) --- In LINUX_Newbies@ yahoogroups. com, Joe Takacs <[EMAIL PROTECTED] ..> wrote: > > I have been a forum member since 2003, a lifelong windoze user and cut > my teeth back in the DOS days. I am still pretty comfortable with the > DOS command line. > > I have been strongly considering going to Linux for a while, but > "testimonials" like this give me second thoughts. > > While windoze is certainly not without problems, it does "just work" (at > least for me). > > Which is the best Linux distro that "just works" without a lot of hassle? > Hey, I'm fairly limited skill-wise too, and need distros that "just work". The only ("only", he says) thing that typically affects a Linux distro "just working" or not is video hardware compatibilty issues. The first three distros I try on any reasonably modern machine (1GHz or better CPU, 512+MB RAM) are: SimplyMEPIS 7.0 (6.5 is still pretty good also), Mandriva 2008, and PCLinuxOS. For more limited machines, SAM Linux, Zenwalk, and Vector 5.9 (or 5.8). I'd be willing to try OpenSUSE again, had I a machine needing reinstallation -- my objections to OpenSUSE were purely aesthetic, which I now know how to tweak. CentOS isn't bad, a lot of the professionals I've met at user-group meetings use it, I find it a little too demanding (and therefore slow-running) for the hardware I have available to me personally. I don't like Ubuntu's "root-user-less" security setup. It perpetuates bad Windows practice of user=admin, no matter how they try to spin their methodology as being A Good Thing. Also, I've had a situation where logging in as root was the ONLY way I could get the GUI (KDE) running, because .kde config files in my /home were seriously screwed, the whole /home partition was screwed, and /root (i.e. root-user's private home directory) is placed with other system directories in system root (and therefore in the system's disk partition) instead of within the /home hierarchy. /root provided me with a virgin default set of .kde configs to revert to. Granted, with your DOS experience, you may not be so dependent on working GUI as I am.... __________________________________________________________________ Ask a question on any topic and get answers from real people. Go to Yahoo! Answers and share what you know at http://ca.answers.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this list, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] & you will be removed.Yahoo! 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