[mythtv-users] OT: SATA errors

[Brian Wood]

On Friday 10 July 2009 13:03:44 David Brodbeck wrote:
> Brian Wood wrote:
> > Ubuntu has done well at attracting new Linux users (I think it's now the
> > most popular distro), but at the cost of behaving differently from
> > "normal" Linux distros. I know they have a "If you're moving from
> > Windows" section in their docs, perhaps they need an "if you're moving
> > from a more normal Unix" section.
>
> FWIW, discouraging people from logging in as root is not unique to
> Ubuntu.  Lately I've been playing with OpenSolaris, and I've found that
> the Solaris world strongly discourages root logins.  In fact, a default
> install will not let you log in directly as root, even from the console,
> and most Solaris versions don't even bother to give root a home
> directory.  Instead they provide a profile mechanism to give user
> accounts the authority to do various rootly duties, and a pfexec command
> to run commands using those profiles.
>
> It turns out the "all or nothing" approach to administrative privileges
> that used to exist in Unix isn't very good for security, so more
> security-conscious implementations tend to shy away from it now.

Yeah, there's an article in a recent Linux Journal about alternatives to 
running programs SUID root, as that can obviously be a security risk.

What bothers me about Ubuntu is that they do not even acknowledge that such a 
thing can be done (becoming root).

Handholding is OK, if you want it and understand it, but forcing training 
wheels onto my system is not what I want.

-- 
Brian Wood
beww at beww.org