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Linus Torvalds on OpenSUSE

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xtabber:
From Linus Torvalds' Google+ blog:

I gave OpenSUSE a try, because it worked so well at install-time on the Macbook Air, but I have to say, I've had enough. There is no way in hell I can honestly suggest that to anybody else any more.

I first spent weeks arguing on a bugzilla that the security policy of requiring the root password for changing the timezone and adding a new wireless network was moronic and wrong.

I think the wireless network thing finally did get fixed, but the timezone never did - it still asks for the admin password.

And today Daniela calls me from school, because she can't add the school printer without the admin password.

Whoever moron thought that it's "good security" to require the root password for everyday things like this is mentally diseased.

So here's a plea: if you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace "my kids" with "sales people on the road" if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place.

.. and now I need to find a new distro that actually works on the Macbook Air.

mahesh2k:
Seriously? ....  :huh: guy who wrote the kernel posted that?

I have to disagree with him. Password for every critical system change is nice security feature, otherwise you always have windows. I guess he's infected with one-button apple logic.  :D

4wd:
I think he's got a valid point about just being able to actually use a laptop like it was intended - as a portable work tool.

Do you think it's better for your employees to perpetually ring up your IT guys just so they can use the WiFi or business facilities in whatever hotel or airport they happen to be in?

How are the IT guys going to allow access to a WiFi network anyway if they have no remote connection?

What will happen is the IT guys will give one of the sales guys the password so he can add a printer while he's sitting in the business centre in the Hyatt Regency, that sales guy will tell his fellow sales people.
Pretty soon one of them will try to add a game or some malware will pop up asking for permission to do something and the sales people not being as knowledgeable as the IT guys will give it permission.

And thus, the scenario the IT guys try to avoid.

Requiring a password to perform just those three things has crippled the original function of the device.  Especially when the only way to overcome them is to send an IT guy out to your globe-trotting employee to add a printer or give the roving employee the admin password.

NOTE: I don't use any Linux distro, so be warned, I could be talking out of my fundamental.

iphigenie:
Seriously? ....  :huh: guy who wrote the kernel posted that?
I have to disagree with him. Password for every critical system change is nice security feature, otherwise you always have windows. I guess he's infected with one-button apple logic.  :D
-mahesh2k (March 01, 2012, 04:31 PM)
--- End quote ---

Well the point then is: adding a printer or joining a hotel wifi, or switching timezone when travelling should not be considered a critical system change, and then we're all in agreement

zridling:
What mahesh2k said. KDE does not require a password to change the timezone in openSUSE. This makes sense when you're lugging a laptop across the country. Linus has long been a Fedora/Gnome guy. Better, why should a user be able to change the system time on a computer; that's for the admin (owner) to do. So why is he blaming openSUSE? Further, since Linus is a command line guy, just manually edit etc/passwd and make all the users to uid 0. Problem solved.
_____________________________________
Some comments that made me LOL:
- My father killed himself because of this post, you ass!
- Who the hell spends the money on a Macbook Air to install GNU/Linux on it?
- Are you really Linus Torvalds?

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