To Alecto: A question about Linux

Alecto, the word in cyberspace is you are the go-to guy on computer issues.

I am considering installing Linux on my computer in place of Windows. Have you ever used the Linux operating system? If so, what features do you like/not like about it? I was recently told that Linux is more susceptible to viruses and trojans than Windows. What do you know about this?

I recently ran Linux from a thumb drive, but I haven't done an install yet. I'm still in the information gathering stage.

Thanks.....

PBulldog2 wrote:Alecto, the word in cyberspace is you are the go-to guy on computer issues.

I am considering installing Linux on my computer in place of Windows. Have you ever used the Linux operating system? If so, what features do you like/not like about it? I was recently told that Linux is more susceptible to viruses and trojans than Windows. What do you know about this?

I recently ran Linux from a thumb drive, but I haven't done an install yet. I'm still in the information gathering stage.

Thanks.....

Sorry, I'm working on a response for you, gimme a minute.

Ok it was quite a few minutes.


Yes I have used Linux since 1994 when slackware was the distribution (a.k.a Distro) of choice and I have used and installed hundreds of distros, still use it today. To answer your questions on viruses, first, slap the person who told you that because they don’t know shit. Since 1994 I have never run an anti virus on a linux system and during my hacking years I would download hundreds of compressed virus files and used linux to work with them since it is almost impossible to infect a linux system, unless your logged in as root (a.k.a god, and yes that is what the root account is referred to in the linux and unix world) and the virus was specifically written for a linux machine. People just do not write viruses for linux because of the massive security in linux. Unlike windows every single file on a linux computer has security permissions. So if you are logged in as a normal user and you open a file with a virus the virus cannot change system files, it can’t do crap. Why? Because it only has normal user permissions and it can not elevate permissions to root level without a password therefore it can not affect system files or system integrity (basic explanation).

What features do I like and dis like.
Likes
First damn near everything is free, rarely does it cost you a dime to get software. All major browsers now support linux (firefox, chrome, opera) and they have some really awesome ones that you can only find in linux (midori). Most of the day to day software has a linux version for example libre office will open, edit any microsft office file and even save it back in a microsoft office format. Adobe acrobat works in linux. There is literally thousands of different types of software you can get for linux and it is free (usually). Tons of support for multimedia files and all kinds of movie players, music players, streaming.
Software installations - It use to really suck hard but now it is as easy as a mouse click. Most linux distros can pull software from a repository (Itunes), yeah just like Itunes. Usually they have some type of interface that comes up that allows you to search for anything you can think of or shows you popular or featured software, click on it, then install it. It’s that simple. Because linux is opensource (free) major developers don’t usually write software for linux but this is changing, steam is currently beta testing on linux which is awesome because this means all major titled video games will be coming to linux. And its about time, h3ll the xbox and PS3 operating systems are proprietary linux systems. Why? Because linux is faster than windows.

Customization – depending on the distro you choose you can customize anything and everything from the color of the “X” in the upper right (or left if you chose to move it there) to how thick the borders are around a window. You also have the choice of desktops gnome, kde, ice, cinnamon, etc. Each desktop has it’s own unique style and feel and they are totally independent of each other. You can install one or 10 different desktops and choose which one you want to log into and use. They even have software to have the Mac OSX bar and functionality.

Virtulization – I run windows and Mac OSX 10 on top of a linux system. Windows and Mac run in a virtual space, one 45gb file of space. I do this for testing, if I kill windows or get it infected I delete the file and copy over my backup, can have windows backup in less than 3 minutes with all my settings intact. It allows me to run any operating system I can think of on top of linux and if goes to crap I just delete it and restore the backup image. This may sound strange but when I run windows on top of linux in virtual space windows does not crash near as much.

Security – Linux security is second to none, the enite system is built around security from the kernel to the display drivers. Linux for years has been running applications in controlled memory space which prevents an app from running away and if it crashes you can kill just that app without affecting the rest of the system. This also isolates an app from the kernel and system files. Windows is usually easy to hack, usually less than 2 minutes. Lets say you have an encrypted drive with bit locker, ok that takes 15 minutes and a special thumb drive with software able to retrieve the hash used on boot. I can get into a windows system in under 4 minutes with just a boot CD (simple exploitation of password file, still works in windows 8 as well), linux systems can be hacked but it takes a long long time and some mad skillz. Linux is the operating system of choice for servers, a majority of the servers in the world that host websites use linux.

Reliability - I have a client that has 3 servers. 1 server is strictly a linux file server, 1 server is windows 2003 that host only 1 website and 1 email domain, 1 server is suse 10.1 with parallels plesk control panel, it host 300+ websites, 300+ email domains. The linux machine has been rebooted 3 times since 2003 and never has a software crash, never had to re install linux because it took a dump. The windows server can barely host a single website, has to be rebooted every week, and I have re installed windows on that damn thing over 10 times (now I have an image that can be restored in 10 minutes vs a 4 1/2 hour install and setup). They are identical machines.

Hacking – yeah I said it. This is my number one reason for my love affair with linux. Hacking is more than just breaking into something, it is the art of discovery and exploration. Because of the linux structure you can change the source code and tailor it to what you want. This is extremely useful of you are having to re- engineer code to work with a specific piece of hardware. I was hacking video drivers for an old ati radeon 1300 video card, trying to massively overclock it since windows wouldn’t let me, well I did for 13 seconds then the GPU exploded, scared the shit out of the kids, that’s the discovery. Now when it comes to networking you can do some crazy wild stuff. If you have a WMP11 linksys wireless network card you can change the firmware and that network card along with a particular version of aircrack-ng you can hack into any wireless network, ANY WIRELESS NETWORK. I have seen this done and the next day ran all new cat 5 cabling in the house, my 233 character WPA2 enterprise password was hacked in 2 hours, a WEP password can be done in under 5 minutes. When I show people this they generally shit their pants and ask how to fix it cause that’s exactly what I did.
Wireshark is a program you can download for linux and windows. The linux version has the ability to sniff and record packets from external IP addresses. What this means is I can target an IP address then I can record all data going to and coming from that IP address. Most ISP firewalls block sniffing attempts that’s the good news but if someone hacks your wireless network guess what they have access to. That’s the exploration.


Dis Likes
NETFLIX does not work, period. Netflix uses silverlight which is a Microsoft product and they refuse to write code for linux because people would hack the crap out of silverlights DRM that is suppose to prevent piracy.

Opensource means free which also means no support so you had better like to read and know how to google like crazy. Because it is opensource there are bugs, usually it is with hardware and getting hardware to work right, most video cards, sound cards, printers, and cameras work without issues but USB wireless cards can be a pain in the ass. Smartphone support is weak but since googles android is a linux operating system support is growing rapidly, even some cool hacks for Ipads and Iphones. Most of the distributions have hardware compatibility list or if you have a problem with a specific piece of hardware I am sure someone else has as well and you should be able to find help with it.

Those are my only dislikes, Linux is very different from windows and it does have a learning curve. For example in windows you have a C: drive, D: drive, E: drive and so on. In linux you have the root folder “/” all drives are sub folders under root “/etc”, “/boot”, “/MyPersonalHardDrive” or what ever you want to name it. If you are a techjunky like me you will have fun with it and once you start using it a lot it will become an obsession and you will never switch back to windows.

My suggestion is run it from the thumb drive for a couple of weeks to see how you like it. If you like it get in touch with me and I can guide you through an install. If you have never done a linux install there are somethings you need to be aware of because if you try it on a drive with windows there is a good possibility you can wipe out your windows installation. It is not hard you just have to understand how linux does partitions so you get it right. I have 8 drives in one of my computers and it is setup as a quad boot system (I have 4 operating systems on one machine).

There are many many different distributions of linux and they all have different pros and cons. Some of the easiest to use are Ubuntu (Gnome Desktop), kubuntu (KDE Desktop), Linux Mint (Cinnimon Desktop). Those 3 are pretty easy to use and are very user friendly while being robust operating systems. Fedora and Opensuse are a little more difficult to use but give you more flexibility on system control (Can actually login to root account). When your ready for it
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

Thank you so much, Alecto! I am glad to hear all of this! I was planning to use the Linux system distributed by Ubuntu.

I'm way to the left on the Linux learning curve, so this is going to take some time. I'm going to do as you suggested and run it from the thumb drive for a couple of weeks so I can familiarize myself with it. If that works out as well as I think it will, I'm going to do the install. And yes, I'm sure I"ll need some talking through that process.

Again, thanks!

Excellent post by Mr Alecto. I some time use a small Linux program called "puppy" to get a little more life out of very old computer. It is very small and runs on a thumb drive. Not much to it but it can give you a feel for bigger Linux programs. Again Thanks Mr Alecto


http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm

What is Puppy Linux?

Puppy Linux is an operating system for computers. Other well-known operating systems are Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX, and MS-DOS. Puppy Linux is based on GNU/Linux. It is completely free and open source software.
How is Puppy Different?

Small size, ~100MB! This lends itself to some very useful and unique features.
'Live' booting from CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives, and other portable media.
Runs from RAM, making it unusually fast even in old PCs and in netbooks with solid state storage media.
Very low minimum system requirements.
Boot time is well under a minute, 30-40 seconds in most systems.
Includes a wide range of applications: wordprocessors, spreadsheets, internet browsers, games, image editors and many utilities. Extra software in the form of dotpets. There is a GUI Puppy Software Installer included.
Puppy is easy to use and little technical knowledge is assumed. Most hardware is automatically detected.
What are Puppy's Goals?

The Puppy Linux goals (adapted from Barry Kauler) are:

Puppy will easily install to USB, Zip, hard drive or other storage media.
Booting from CD (or DVD), Puppy can load itself totally into RAM so that the CD (DVD) drive is then free for other purposes.
Booting from DVD (or CD), Puppy can save all work to the DVD (CD).
Booting from USB flash drive (or other flash media), Puppy will minimize writes to extend its life.
Puppy will be extremely friendly for Linux newbies.
Puppy will boot up and run extraordinarily fast.
Puppy will have all the applications needed for daily use.
Puppy will just work, no hassles.
Puppy will breathe new life into old PCs.
Puppy will load and run totally in RAM for diskless thin stations.
How is Puppy organized?

The community is marked by openness and flexibility, and gets organized around goals. Barry Kauler is traditionally the chief developer who leads the development of official releases, the latest being version 4.3.1. Community Editions (official CE versions) are created by teams, the latest being version 5.1.1, and before this, version 4.2.1. Projects are run by individuals or groups and posted/discussed in the Forum.

alecto wrote:Ok it was quite a few minutes.


http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

Alecto, is Linux associated with Red Hat or are they one in the same?

Ghost_Rider1 wrote:

alecto wrote:Ok it was quite a few minutes.


http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

Alecto, is Linux associated with Red Hat or are they one in the same?

Linux is an operating system, Redhat is a distribution of linux.

Think of it like this. Do you remember DOS 6.2, you had to install DOS and it was a command line operating system. That is Linux, the kernel (core) is a command line operating system. After you installed DOS you would install windows 3.1 on top of it. That is Redhat the distribution (Distro), it is the GUI (graphical user interface). All Linux distributions use the same core they just build their own custom graphical user interface.

Thank you for bringing up Redhat, forgot about hat one and I was wrong when I said major developers do not write software for Linux. Microsoft owns a majority share of Redhat. Microsoft has begun to use a lot of Linux functionality in their operating systems. This has become more prevalent in windows 8. For example because windows 8 is designed for tablets and phones they needed to remove a lot of the bloated software from the microsoft kernel, they modeled the windows 8 kernel after the Linux kernel and one of the significant changes was kernel tick was removed in windows 8. Linux removed this back in the 90's, kernel tick is a timing function of the system that wakes the processor up at a regular interval to run task. Well this uses power and resources.

hallmarkgrad wrote:Excellent post by Mr Alecto. I some time use a small Linux program called "puppy" to get a little more life out of very old computer. It is very small and runs on a thumb drive. Not much to it but it can give you a feel for bigger Linux programs. Again Thanks Mr Alecto

Your welcome.

Here is a little trick for you. Have you ever had a file you could not delete in windows for what ever reason. Have you ever had your computer infected with adware that you could not remove or delete. Boot up puppy linux from a thumb drive and you can browse, delete windows files using puppy linux. This comes in handy if you download one of those fake virus removal tools that keeps asking you to buy the software and there is no way to get rid of it.

PBulldog2 wrote:Thank you so much, Alecto! I am glad to hear all of this! I was planning to use the Linux system distributed by Ubuntu.

I'm way to the left on the Linux learning curve, so this is going to take some time. I'm going to do as you suggested and run it from the thumb drive for a couple of weeks so I can familiarize myself with it. If that works out as well as I think it will, I'm going to do the install. And yes, I'm sure I"ll need some talking through that process.

Again, thanks!

Your very welcome.

Ubuntu is an excellent choice and is rapidly becoming a favorite for new linux users. Check out the Ubuntu Software Centre, Ubuntu also offer 5gb of cloud storage now that works with windows, Mac OSX, IOS (iphones,ipads) and googles android. The only draw back to Ubuntu is the default desktop lacks some of the customization features like manipulating the toolbars or window themes. I do expect this to change soon because users are screaming about having that ability. Even if they do not change it the Ubuntu desktop is very sleek and eloquent as it stands.

alecto wrote:

hallmarkgrad wrote:Excellent post by Mr Alecto. I some time use a small Linux program called "puppy" to get a little more life out of very old computer. It is very small and runs on a thumb drive. Not much to it but it can give you a feel for bigger Linux programs. Again Thanks Mr Alecto

Your welcome.

Here is a little trick for you. Have you ever had a file you could not delete in windows for what ever reason. Have you ever had your computer infected with adware that you could not remove or delete. Boot up puppy linux from a thumb drive and you can browse, delete windows files using puppy linux. This comes in handy if you download one of those fake virus removal tools that keeps asking you to buy the software and there is no way to get rid of it.

Fantastic! I foolishly downloaded a "free to evaluate" adware removal program years ago that eventually forced me to pay $30.00, even though I wasn't pleased with the software. To this day I haven't been able to remove that program, although I've never had to pay to update it. I can't remember the name of the program right now. Something or other cleaner, I don't recall. I'd like to be able to remove it just on general principle.

I heard about puppy linux. We have an old computer that a co-worker says may well work again if I try puppy linux. If I can get into the Windows files on puppy linux, I may be able to clearn it up enough to get it working smoothly again.

This is new to me, although I remember researching Linux over a decade ago. I was excited about the OS then, but I was clueless about how to get it working on my computer.

This will give me a great project for the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays.

PBulldog2 wrote:

alecto wrote:

hallmarkgrad wrote:Excellent post by Mr Alecto. I some time use a small Linux program called "puppy" to get a little more life out of very old computer. It is very small and runs on a thumb drive. Not much to it but it can give you a feel for bigger Linux programs. Again Thanks Mr Alecto

Your welcome.

Here is a little trick for you. Have you ever had a file you could not delete in windows for what ever reason. Have you ever had your computer infected with adware that you could not remove or delete. Boot up puppy linux from a thumb drive and you can browse, delete windows files using puppy linux. This comes in handy if you download one of those fake virus removal tools that keeps asking you to buy the software and there is no way to get rid of it.

Fantastic! I foolishly downloaded a "free to evaluate" adware removal program years ago that eventually forced me to pay $30.00, even though I wasn't pleased with the software. To this day I haven't been able to remove that program, although I've never had to pay to update it. I can't remember the name of the program right now. Something or other cleaner, I don't recall. I'd like to be able to remove it just on general principle.

I heard about puppy linux. We have an old computer that a co-worker says may well work again if I try puppy linux. If I can get into the Windows files on puppy linux, I may be able to clearn it up enough to get it working smoothly again.

This is new to me, although I remember researching Linux over a decade ago. I was excited about the OS then, but I was clueless about how to get it working on my computer.

This will give me a great project for the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays.

Puppy linux should mount the windows partitions just fine, if it will not let you move or delete files you may have to login as root

I would create a folder on the windows drive (name it whatever) move the undesired program into that folder, that way if it messes windows up you can boot into puppy linux and move the files back. If it's all good you should be able to delete it from windows safely.

We need you working in the Pentagon . . . . . I would sleep like a baby! Impressive body of knowledge Alecto!