Pete OrrallMar 4

Call me old school but this is one of my biggest gripes with #ubuntu and the #Linux desktop shift over the past two decades:

Disabling root and using sudo for everything. When *properly* configured, sudo is an excellent security policy tool!

BUT...allowing any user to easily gain admin rights with their own password, even temporarily, without properly understanding the system? That is just asking for disaster through poor practice. This is no different than the convenience of #Windows and #MacOS.

Ubuntu's default sudo configuration means the user only needs their password to brick their system.

sudo chown -R 400 /usr/*

Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now.

Show threadbazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵Mar 4
@peteorrall still this is useful for people who know what they're doing. maybe during installation, there should be a toggle "[x] trust me, I'm a professional" or something that enables this, lol
Show threadPete OrrallMar 4

@bazkie The #Debian installer offers this. #Ubuntu, on the other hand, has standardized on giving the first user unrestricted sudo access 20+ years ago.

I'm glad that more people are adopting and using #Linux, especially on the desktop, but poor security practice has been normalized.

Show threadHagarashi8
@peteorrall @bazkie The thing is, it doesn't really matter. Experienced user will be able to handle it probably and noob will copy-paste random commands from the LLM and give all the passwords and social security number to the prompts anyway, no amount of roadblocks will succeed at blocking stupidity.
Mar 4 at 6:19pmWeb
Show threadPete OrrallMar 4

@hagarashi8 @bazkie

Well isn't that a fatalist argument. The reality is we were ALL new once. Sure, more people (especially new users) may be using LLMs to learn Linux but that doesn't mean that ALL new people use LLMs to learn Linux.

Early experiences do shape our experience with systems and new users can learn better habits. Experienced users began by making mistakes and learning how to fix them and learning from them.

Show threadHagarashi8Mar 4
@peteorrall @bazkie Well, if they're lucky, they were copying from stackoverflow, which is while better, not by a long shot. There's generally no way around copy-paste phase, and anyone in that phase will not understand why roadblocks are here, so it surely won't stop them, and anyone after that phase will not need those roadblocks.
Show threadPete OrrallMar 4
@hagarashi8 @bazkie How did you learn #Linux?
Show threadbazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵Mar 4

@hagarashi8 @peteorrall I disagree, I pretty much didn't do any copy/paste blocks during my learning linux. mostly single line stuff, and in those cases, I put in some effort to find out what stuff generally meant.

the type you describe surely also exists, but you know, there's many people, all different, so maybe you are a bit overly cynical