root
Posted Feb 18, 2003 20:29 UTC (Tue) by
jwharmanny (guest, #971)
In reply to:
root by mattdm
Parent article:
Lindows.com introduces antivirus system
When a 'normal' GNU/Linux user tries to wipe out his harddisk, nothing
really bad happens. In the worst case, all of /tmp and /home/username are
lost (but most people backup their own documents often enough to handle
that).
In Windows (even Windows XP), when a user tries to format c:, the only
thing that stops him is a warning message. That's what viruses exploit all
the time. They settle themselves in the Windows registry and startup
files, and they infiltrate all core system services.
The only solution in Windows is to use a virus scanner (works in most
cases) or fdisk the entire system. Been there, done that, and it wasn't
funny.
The Linux solution is to replace the user account which was infected with
a new, clean account. And because of the XML-based document formats, which
are text-based, you can verify most documents for viruses just using vi or
kate.
Lindows throws the user-account-safety away by defaulting to the root
account.
I think users should be able to use the root account by default, but only
if they know what risks they take. The targeted Lindows users don't know
those risks. This is yet another good Linux-feature which is abandoned
because of 'useability' (read: marketing reasons). What's next?
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