Which Linux system?

EDDY1 · 01-10-2015, 05:30 PM

Debian has gotten easier now from the time I started. People tend to avoid booting the installer in "Expert Mode" which just makes the install so much easier. Also they don't know that they have to comment out the Cdrom in /etc/apt/sources.list for it to work properly.
Right now I wiosh that I had an EFI machine to play with.

273 · 01-10-2015, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1

Debian has gotten easier now from the time I started. People tend to avoid booting the installer in "Expert Mode" which just makes the install so much easier. Also they don't know that they have to comment out the Cdrom in /etc/apt/sources.list for it to work properly.
Right now I wiosh that I had an EFI machine to play with.

Very true and you are right about "expert mode" which, in actual fact, makes it easier for non-experts to use things like non-free drivers and CODECs.
As an aside I have a cheap, flimsy EUFI laptop currently undergoing warranty repair but the only way I could seem to get it to boot the installer (from USB, it has no optical drive) was to switch it back to BIOS emulation. I will play further when it is returned to me. Would love to try in VirtualBox but I get the feeling its EUFI might not be complete?

mdlinuxwolf · 01-10-2015, 06:48 PM

Debian works, but for newbies I would recommend a more user friendly distro with all the codecs if possible. Linux mint has a variation that runs on pure debian with all the commands available in the terminal for those who desire them + the usability that Mint is famous for.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

jamison20000e · 01-10-2015, 07:18 PM

Some newbies but not so much the ones seeking Linux out.
http://skillcrush.com/2012/08/07/con...s-your-friend/
BSD, Arch or Slackware make good from the ground up DIYs too.

EDDY1 · 01-10-2015, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 273

Very true and you are right about "expert mode" which, in actual fact, makes it easier for non-experts to use things like non-free drivers and CODECs.
As an aside I have a cheap, flimsy EUFI laptop currently undergoing warranty repair but the only way I could seem to get it to boot the installer (from USB, it has no optical drive) was to switch it back to BIOS emulation. I will play further when it is returned to me. Would love to try in VirtualBox but I get the feeling its EUFI might not be complete?

Some of the different modes aren't available when you use unetbootin, but, they are if you use dd to put the iso on usb. Another of the features not availble is graphical mode, which is similar to safe-graphics.

pierssnell · 01-11-2015, 03:06 PM

Recommended to one newbie by another newbie...

Puppy is easy. It's lightweight, quick to load, and because the OS is loaded into RAM, works faster than most. It works well as a single machine, single-user model, so you can do what you like without wondering whether you should be putting sudo in front of every command. Arguably there's some security risk to "running as root" the whole time, but there are a pretty convincing arguments as to why that's actually not THAT big a risk in real life. Best of all, if you make a live CD or flash-drive installation, if it doesn't work, you'll only have wasted five minutes, because it's that quick and easy to set up. Try it.

If you *like* tinkering with different account settings, configurations and user privileges, leave it alone!

jamison20000e · 01-11-2015, 10:42 PM

Code:

useradd username

Not hard to

Code:

su

or

Code:

sudo

and is recommended by all distros including Puppy...

greeder · 01-12-2015, 12:20 AM

This is realy up to you. I run Linux on machines that used to run XP. My current choice is Xubuntu, the version of unbuntu with the XFCE desktop. i have also run various versions of Puppy Linux. In any case, at the top of this forum is a thread entitled "50 alternitives to Windows". It's worth a read.

pierssnell · 01-12-2015, 05:05 AM

BTW I hope I didn't imply that using su and sudo was a job best left to the experts... of course it's not hard. It's just a bit unnecessary in a single-machine, single-user setup. I think that has appeal for a newbie.

By the way, "useradd" *isn't* recommended by Puppy. In Puppy it's "adduser". The commands may be interchangeable in other distros?

Didier Spaier · 01-12-2015, 05:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pierssnell

It's just a bit unnecessary in a single-machine, single-user setup.

Unless that machine be connected to the Internet...

pierssnell · 01-12-2015, 08:37 AM

Well, the jury is still out on that one... for those that are worried, by all means put your trust in an OS that offers sudo, which instantly promotes a casual user to root privileges without needing root password!

Thapainfo · 01-12-2015, 09:13 AM

Why do you want to sift from Windows XP to Linux? Firstly, You have to be clear and then take step forward.

onebuck · 01-12-2015, 09:33 AM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by pierssnell

Well, the jury is still out on that one... for those that are worried, by all means put your trust in an OS that offers sudo, which instantly promotes a casual user to root privileges without needing root password!

Juries are not out! If a user needs to make system changes then root access is necessary either via 'su -' or 'sudo'. If you wish to make a system change in the GUI or Desktop the user will need to provide the 'root' password for most interactions for system changes. A user will be provided 'sudo' access via setup of;

Code:

## sudoers file.
##
## This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
## Failure to use 'visudo' may result in syntax or file permission errors
## that prevent sudo from running.
##
## See the sudoers man page for the details on how to write a sudoers file.
##

##
## Host alias specification
##
## Groups of machines. These may include host names (optionally with wildcards),
## IP addresses, network numbers or netgroups.
# Host_Alias    WEBSERVERS = www1, www2, www3

##
## User alias specification
##
## Groups of users.  These may consist of user names, uids, Unix groups,
## or netgroups.
# User_Alias    ADMINS = millert, dowdy, mikef

##
## Cmnd alias specification
##
## Groups of commands.  Often used to group related commands together.
# Cmnd_Alias    PROCESSES = /usr/bin/nice, /bin/kill, /usr/bin/renice, \
#                           /usr/bin/pkill, /usr/bin/top

##
## Defaults specification
##
## You may wish to keep some of the following environment variables
## when running commands via sudo.
##
## Locale settings
# Defaults env_keep += "LANG LANGUAGE LINGUAS LC_* _XKB_CHARSET"
##
## Run X applications through sudo; HOME is used to find the
## .Xauthority file.  Note that other programs use HOME to find
## configuration files and this may lead to privilege escalation!
# Defaults env_keep += "HOME"
##
## X11 resource path settings
# Defaults env_keep += "XAPPLRESDIR XFILESEARCHPATH XUSERFILESEARCHPATH"

'man sudoer';

Quote:

Name sudoers - list of which users may execute what

Description

The sudoers file is composed of two types of entries: aliases (basically variables) and user specifications (which specify who may run what). The grammar of sudoers will be described below in Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF). Don't despair if you don't know what EBNF is; it is fairly simple, and the definitions below are annotated.

'man sudo';

Quote:

SYNOPSIS
sudo -h | -K | -k | -L | -V

sudo -v [-AknS] [-a auth_type] [-p prompt]

sudo -l[l] [-AknS] [-a auth_type] [-g groupname|#gid] [-p prompt]
[-U username] [-u username|#uid] [command]

sudo [-AbEHnPS] [-a auth_type] [-C fd] [-c class|-] [-g groupname|#gid]
[-p prompt] [-r role] [-t type] [-u username|#uid] [VAR=value]
[-i | -s] [command]

sudoedit [-AnS] [-a auth_type] [-C fd] [-c class|-] [-g groupname|#gid]
[-p prompt] [-u username|#uid] file ...

DESCRIPTION
sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or
another user, as specified in the sudoers file. The real and effective
uid and gid are set to match those of the target user as specified in
the passwd file and the group vector is initialized based on the group
file (unless the -P option was specified). If the invoking user is
root or if the target user is the same as the invoking user, no
password is required. Otherwise, sudo requires that users authenticate
themselves with a password by default (NOTE: in the default
configuration this is the user's password, not the root password).
Once a user has been authenticated, a timestamp is updated and the user
may then use sudo without a password for a short period of time (15
minutes unless overridden in sudoers).

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

pierssnell · 01-12-2015, 01:08 PM

This seems to have gone WAY off topic, as far as the thread initiation is concerned, but as long as nobody minds too much...

Sorry, I didn't mean that the jury was out as to how tight the su/sudo structure was, I meant that the jury was out as to how essential this "privilege" structure is to secure an internet-connected machine, and that the amount of protection offered appears to be questionable. Please don't get me wrong, I claim no expertise whatsoever on the subject, but a web-search on the question of "how unsafe is it to run as root?", suggests that there is a wide spectrum of views on the subject. That's all I was indicating by the "jury is out" phrase. Since there does seem to be a wide variety of views out there, I actually have to make a personal choice about who to believe.

For instance, I find the arguments in the following pages pretty persuasive; it may well be that you can pick *all sorts of holes* in the reasoning behind these articles... but that discussion would occupy a much more substantial thread, and I suspect that's a thread that has been spun, and spun handsomely, in hundreds of other forums. I am *REALLY* not qualified to argue the finer points!

http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/faqs/login.html
https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2010...fear-not-root/

jamison20000e · 01-12-2015, 02:20 PM

Is your password linux by chance?

At lest: http://puppylinux.org/wikka/security ...