A tale of two kernels [LWN.net]

A tale of two kernels

Posted Apr 16, 2009 2:42 UTC (Thu) by jake (editor, #205)
In reply to: A tale of two kernels by ajross
Parent article: New Attack Sneaks Rootkits Into Linux Kernel (Dark Reading)

> There were flames, but informative ones.

I actually found the parent to be informative, flamebait, but informative. The later response was even more flamebait-ish, but still had some interesting information (the existence of a securelevel LSM at one point).

I, at least, did not know about either securelevel or its short-lived appearance in the Linux kernel.

Perhaps the parent was trolling, but I don't think *this* particular post shows a major decline in the discourse here. YMMV.

jake

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A tale of two kernels

Posted Apr 16, 2009 11:31 UTC (Thu) by interalia (subscriber, #26615) [Link]

What I think the site has lost is the general cordiality. I am quite happy for people to share information about the BSDs, and aspects in which they are better than Linux. But the OP is simply a flamebait way of saying "Linux sucks, BSD is better". The technical information was appreciated, just not the tone. Compare it with times gone past when an equivalent post might have gone along the lines of:

"OpenBSD has a concept of "securelevel", set to level 1 in multiuser, and in which /dev/mem and /dev/kmem may not be written to. The securelevel cannot be subsequently lowered except by init.

Perhaps Linux could consider the same or similar feature?"

Then a discussion might ensue about the merits/drawbacks of such an approach. Just speaking for myself, but that is the kind of posts I like to see. Useful technical info being shared, with people possibly being robust when disagreeing, but still cordial.

A tale of two kernels

Posted Apr 16, 2009 18:01 UTC (Thu) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]

It's also not productive to complain that some interface or concept or mechanism (or manpage!) doesn't exist on platform A but exists on platform B with the exact same name.