On 30 May 2006 at 15:02, Andreas Hanke wrote:
Kenneth Schneider schrieb:
True, if you want a less secure OS use MS windows. If you want a more secure OS use linux
If a home user does not want to type the root-password each time he is installing a program, then this is his choice.
Then just login as root all the time.
Again, linux is not MS windows and should -not- be made to act like it.
Why do we need these Windows-Linux comparisons? Superuser capabilities are a genuine UNIX feature. There is nothing "MS Windows-like" in having an option to grant users certain permissions.
If you can take away root'srights via ACLs in Linux, MS-Windows and Linux are comparable: Take away all rights from root, then root is nothing special any more. Likewise: Add all rights to the Administrator in Windows, and you have something like root in Linux.
It shouldn't be the default, of course, but nobody seriously proposes insecure defaults. sudo exists anyway, so I fail to see the point why having such an option in the software updater can be a problem.
Educating people how to manage their systems is out of scope in this discussion IMHO. If someone wants to grant permissions, he will do it anyway, does it really matter if it's the classical UNIX tool named sudo or a built-in feature of the software updater?
I think the real problem is when the user has to guess the security concepts. (Just like in Windows: Most users don't know they are working as Administrator (Default installation) Regards, Ulrich