this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024

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To be honest, it is quite complicated now as well with all of the proprietary software (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

For Linux applications that respect XDG? Sure. There are plenty that don't because they either predate that specification, or they just don't care. Linux filesystems are generally much faster at executing reads on many small files, meaning fast search tools like ripgrep and fd make it so I don't really have to care. They'll run through my whole $HOME in 5 seconds flat. There's also stuff like locate, although I don't like maintaining an index. SSDs are so damn fast that I can just rg --hidden --glob '*.toml' 'the_setting_i_want_to_change' ~/ whenever I want.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

Tell that to the file I just dropped in to ~/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/compatdata/1086940/pfx

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

To be fair sometimes configs instead of XDG_CONFIG_HOME(~/.config) are stored in XDG_DATA_HOME(~/.local/share)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Everyone knows the real power of configuration on Windows is regedit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Let's not pretend regedit is a good thing, it is littered with unreadable keys and has terrible UI and UX. And it requires root privileges to edit anything.

I believe one of the worst disservice Windows has done to secure computing is to make users desensitized about root privileges. Every single action you do need root privileges, install app, changing config, people would just click allow whenever UAC pops up...

This means any program can easily inject rootkit into Windows during install, without the users noticing a thing, like LoL.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

As opposed to sudo command?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

You don't need to use sudo command that much on linux. I personally only need to use it to edit two config files when setting up my system, that is it.

One for pre-connection mac randomization, one to enable a kernel module I need, because my distro disable many of them by default. I am very conscious of the changes I am making. However on Windows, I have no idea what the app installers are doing.

Not to mention, most users don't even need to make these changes. Per-network randomization is likely good enough for most user, and they probably not on a security-hardened distro which disables tons of kernel modules.

For a office work and entertainments, flatpak apps are more than enough. And developers can choose to get their sdk via flatpak or podman dev containers. None of them requires sudo.

Is there a good reason for a everyday user (not a tinker nor a system admin) to use sudo in linux?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Not sure what you're doing there, but it's pretty much every other command needs sudo here... Can't even install updates without it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Except when you install something on linux package manager of your distro is executed as opposed to installer that was made by developer of package you are installing. And you probably install install packages from your distro's repos, unless you are on Debian of course.

Or you can run package manager as user that usually installs in ~/.local. Or unpack yourself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Package managers have post install scripts and hooks that would allow you to install a rootkit. Then again they can also just add services on many Linux systems, which can run as root. Just put a systemd unit file in the right place and enable it.

The security advantage of Linux is having trusted repos and using things like FlatPak. System packages being malicious would very much be able to infect a system. Just look at the XZ backdoor for an example.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The safest way to install update is via offline updates, which don't need sudo on the user side, but requires a restart. See https://fedoramagazine.org/offline-updates-and-fedora-35/ for a good explanation.

I believe offline upgrade is also the default on every OS out there, for example gnome software only installs updates offline.

Even if you have to use sudo to upgrade (or journalctl, dmesg, both are sysadmin tasks and not typically done by a normal user), you are still only giving root privileges to these trusted programs distributed by your distro, not some random installers on the internet, unless you are using AUR.

I am genuinely curious what other commands with sudo that you need to run on a daily bases, for tasks that is unrelated to system administration?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Shrug don't remember the last time I actually needed to modify a system config file on Windows...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Software actually does store it's configs in files... sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

/etc or /usr/local/etc and done

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

For user space /home/$user/.config/application_name/config.file_name

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