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I stumbed across this rant today and was amused. I always find it interesting when certain key players of an operating system vent at an element of their own creation.

Bill Gates did something similar against WindowsXP and noted that such e-mail venting were his job.

IT drama.

Linus likes to use strong words and sentences...

I remember similar rant about C++ being a piece of flaming crap or something, and he had a multiple valid points there, even though I'm C++ developer, and I would love to disagree. But if anybody else used such language, they would be marked as trolls or banned.

Linus was harsh but he's right - it's stupid to require the root password to change those things. I mean, it's been... seven years? since Ubuntu started using graphical-sudo to let users with admin privs use their own passwords instead.

Instead of finding a new distro, why doesn't he just change it to suit his needs?

(Partially kidding, but hey, this guy started it!)

If you read Linus' posts on Real World Tech's forums, you'll see similarly aggressive language. He's just a very, very blunt guy. Too much so, yes.

I.S.T. wrote:

If you read Linus' posts on Real World Tech's forums, you'll see similarly aggressive language. He's just a very, very blunt guy. Too much so, yes.

Oh my, because saying "hell" and "moron" constitutes aggressive language.

Meadows wrote:

I.S.T. wrote:

If you read Linus' posts on Real World Tech's forums, you'll see similarly aggressive language. He's just a very, very blunt guy. Too much so, yes.

Oh my, because saying "hell" and "moron" constitutes aggressive language.

Well, let's just say he goes quite a bit further on RWT, using words that would get me banned here amongst other things.

Though, yes the word moron is aggressive. >_> Nothing wrong with aggressive language(I use quite a bit of it myself), but denying the word is aggressive seems a bit... much.

What's even more funny is that he's using suse (which probably means KDE4) after his huge rant about how terrible KDE4 was when it first came out, and how he was switching to Gnome.

Meadows wrote:

I.S.T. wrote:

If you read Linus' posts on Real World Tech's forums, you'll see similarly aggressive language. He's just a very, very blunt guy. Too much so, yes.

Oh my, because saying "hell" and "moron" constitutes aggressive language.

"So here's a plea: ... please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place."

I'd call that aggressive, and I can't respect anyone who would just toss phrases like that around.

Ryu Connor wrote:

I stumbed across this rant today and was amused. I always find it interesting when certain key players of an operating system vent at an element of their own creation.

Well... Linus is the kernel guy. He really has nothing to do with the desktop GUIs (other than as a user). The desktop environments are developed by 3rd parties, and sit at least three layers above his kernel in the software stack.

To go with the inevitable auto analogy: It's sort of like the engineer who designed a car's power train getting royally pissed off at the guy who designed the electronic door locks...

You owe me a Green Apple Lambic for making that post.

Consider it a cosmic debt for being Captain Obvious.

A green apple lambic sounds delicious.

After I watched the documentary about Linux and him, I thought he is a calm guy. But maybe he's only using those words in emails.

Anyway I can understand how he feels if your kids know that you are the father of Linux and call you to complain about one of its distro.

crabjokeman wrote:

What's even more funny is that he's using suse (which probably means KDE4) after his huge rant about how terrible KDE4 was when it first came out, and how he was switching to Gnome.

That's not necessarily true. OpenSuse gives KDE the most love, out of the major distros, but it supports Gnome and Xfce equally as well.

OpenSuse supports Macbook Air hardware better then some other distros, and that is why is daughter was using it. Linus uses Fedora.

just brew it! wrote:

Well... Linus is the kernel guy. He really has nothing to do with the desktop GUIs (other than as a user). The desktop environments are developed by 3rd parties, and sit at least three layers above his kernel in the software stack.

Exactly, any desktop guy would have known supporting remote users is one of the IT levels of hell and taken appropriate measures.

Meadows wrote:

Oh my, because saying "hell" and "moron" constitutes aggressive language.

It's the tone of the post. It's total flamebait. It's devoid of any meaningful information, and it's just more fodder for the anti-linux crowd to post ad nauseam.

For instance, did you know PolicyKit is designed to fix situations like the one encountered? It is, so the problem has already been addressed in other distros, just not OpenSuse apparently. That makes Linus's post equivalent to lard in the cooking world, tasteless with zero nutritional content.

Flatland_Spider wrote:

That makes Linus's post equivalent to lard in the cooking world, tasteless with zero nutritional content.

Try biscuits made with lard vice those made with shortening. You'll taste the difference.

Flatland_Spider wrote:

That makes Linus's post equivalent to lard in the cooking world, tasteless with zero nutritional content.

No, because:

A) Linux has to be stable and easy to use
B) doesn't matter...

Once the criteria A is met, there is a chance it will get more market penetration, and more support from software companies. Everything else doesn't matter.

I'm almost exclusively Linux user now, and I really want to see games and stuff being supported on Linux, I really do. Nothing beats free OS with super powerful console. The fact that most spyware and trojans go like "wtf, I can't execute, what's going on?!" is an additional bonus

Over the top language, not surprising really. I've been pointed to several Linus rants in the past where he's gone equally over board due to minor frustration. What cracked me up is that the bigger issue that he's neglecting is that there's only one Linux distro that works even reasonably well on the MacBook Air. Speaks to the greater problems of Linux far more than a mildly frustrating password policy.

Washer wrote:

Over the top language, not surprising really. I've been pointed to several Linus rants in the past where he's gone equally over board due to minor frustration. What cracked me up is that the bigger issue that he's neglecting is that there's only one Linux distro that works even reasonably well on the MacBook Air. Speaks to the greater problems of Linux far more than a mildly frustrating password policy.

What do you mean? Just about every distro of Linux runs just fine on any modern MacBook... in a VM where it belongs!

Captain Ned wrote:

Flatland_Spider wrote:

That makes Linus's post equivalent to lard in the cooking world, tasteless with zero nutritional content.

Try biscuits made with lard vice those made with shortening. You'll taste the difference.

In my mind lard is a synonym for Crisco, so you're right, I need to be more accurate when choosing my words.

Ryu Connor wrote:

You owe me a Green Apple Lambic for making that post.

Consider it a cosmic debt for being Captain Obvious.

Obvious to people who know/use Linux. Not necessarily obvious to everyone reading this thread.

i agree with linus 100% of what he said. security has gone too far. think of the kids people!

Not completely, because kids shouldn't be able to install p0rn gadgets that are automatically installed on first web page visit. Or p0rn print drivers.

Madman wrote:

Not completely, because kids shouldn't be able to install p0rn gadgets that are automatically installed on first web page visit. Or p0rn print drivers.

But then how will they learn about sexting before their friends?!

Linus is pointing out a legitimate problem but it's partially of his own making. Linux (in its default flavor) follows the UNIX model of security almost to a fault. In UNIX you basically have the superuser (aka root) who is effectively God on your system (not to turn this into a R&P thread). The regular users on the system are little peons who typically can just run programs allowed by the superuser.

Now, sudo allows a typical user to become root for some or all tasks where needed. It's a great utility when you yourself own the computer and want full control, but don't want to accidentally shoot yourself in the foot. It's a lousy utility for the situation that Linus is in where he wants his son to be able to do some tasks on the computer, but does *not* want him to become the Superuser. Now I'm 100% aware of the fact that it is technically possible to setup a complex sudoers file that allows non-root users to use "sudo" for a limited set of tasks. However, setting all of that up is a major PITA even for someone like Torvalds.

What Linux needs is more granular security that goes way beyond the normal read/write/execute on files permissions bits of the past. There are technologies to do this alread (SELinux, etc.) but they are not well integrated into most distros. Getting the improved security technology accessible to the regular user is a big deal that Linux still needs to improve on.

chuckula wrote:

Now I'm 100% aware of the fact that it is technically possible to setup a complex sudoers file that allows non-root users to use "sudo" for a limited set of tasks. However, setting all of that up is a major PITA even for someone like Torvalds.

Wrong, and extra negative points for being arrogant enough to both misunderstand the problem and then assume that the proper fix is too difficult for Linus because it's too hard for someone clearly as great as you.

Wrong, and extra negative points for being arrogant enough to both misunderstand the problem and then assume that the proper fix is too difficult for Linus because it's too hard for someone clearly as great as you.

When it comes to arrogance I ain't got nothing on you!! Yup, Linus is an idiot, and I'm sure that the very first thing you do when you install Ubuntu is to spend 6 hours tweaking the sudoers file to anticipate every single action that somebody else might take! Yup, you anticipate every potential future action that anyone will take with the computer long before it ever happens because you're the Amazing Kreskin. Please tell us when you will take over all Linux kernel development and save us from the tyranny of those morons who write it now.

My point stands: Making the improved granular security features that are available in Linux easier to use and configure in an intelligent manner would greatly improve Linux's usability *and* improve security to boot since there would be less need to assume superuser privileges. After all, when you use sudo you are really hoping that the program you run is going to do what you want it to do.. and not something else.

I /am/ arrogant, but not enough to refer to my far-more-accomplished betters as stupid, or to assume that I know more about using said luminary's own creation than he does.

Group-based permissions actually work fairly well in many cases. There are even GUI-based tools to manage them in most distros, for those who don't want to do it via CLI.

I am not arrogant, I am Arrogance. Get it right.

What Linus is ranting about here is not how he can't work around the issue. Linus has haxed more sudoer files than any of us. He's ranting about the NEED to be doing haxing to get a fairly large Linux distro to do things The Right Way on fairly mainstream hardware. Linus doesn't WANT to be Johnny On-Call Tech Support. He apparently has more important things to do...

chuckula wrote:

Linus is pointing out a legitimate problem but it's partially of his own making. Linux (in its default flavor) follows the UNIX model of security almost to a fault. In UNIX you basically have the superuser (aka root) who is effectively God on your system (not to turn this into a R&P thread). The regular users on the system are little peons who typically can just run programs allowed by the superuser.

This problem is the reason PolicyKit was created. For instance, Fedora doesn't have this problem because it uses PolicyKit to manage privileges.
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PolicyKit

Access Controls Lists are implemented in the filesystem, and ext has had support for them for some time.
Check out this link for more information. http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fed ... -acls.html

ACLs aren't used most of the time because the traditional permissions model works pretty well. I've run into a couple of instances where ACLs would be better, but that those were really odd cases. ACLs are nice to have, but most of the time, their complexity isn't needed.

Users have complete control of their profile. I take advantage of this by running several programs from a bin directory in my profile which don't get updated as often as I'd like, or don't exist in the case of Firefox in Debian. I've also used this to add some tools that I like on box which I only have shell access. It's really a shame people expect users to be sysadmins as well. That type of thinking really obscures how much power Unix-like systems give to the end user.

What Linux needs is more granular security that goes way beyond the normal read/write/execute on files permissions bits of the past. There are technologies to do this alread (SELinux, etc.) but they are not well integrated into most distros. Getting the improved security technology accessible to the regular user is a big deal that Linux still needs to improve on.

I agree that somethings could be easier, but you're looking at the wrong things. The technologies exist to solve the problem, and it's not a problem with the permissions model of the filesystem. The problem is the way the entire system is structured.

Linux is a server operating system that is expected to be accessed via services from an external source, and as such, single-user interactivity is a usage model that is largely ignored. It's expected the end user is going to be a sysadmin, not an unprivileged user. Even Ubuntu fails to make the distinction between a regular user, and their needs, and the needs of a sysadmin or http daemon. Mac OS X is a Unix focused on the single-user usage model, and as such it has an entirely different structure then Linux.

I'm going to stop before this turns into an essay.