The delusional world of Linux.

[abacab]

15 hours ago, StudioNSFW said:

Given my network topology, it would take a targeted attack to get very far...but I have similar concerns for IoT devices like my whiz bang LED light bulbs that can be controllled via wifi.  So I have a seperate IoT Wifi environment for those things...because you cant spell "Idiot" without IoT...

I use wifi isolation on my router  for my guest network, and attach all my mobile and IoT gizmos to that. They are happy because they can get to the internet, but it keeps them from connecting to my personal computing environment on the main wifi network. But the point about an attack via an obsolete Win7 OS connected on the main network would still be an issue. Best to isolate that as well...

Edited May 7, 2020 by abacab

[craigb]

While I try to avoid most IoT devices, I must admit that I just LOVE my WiFi enabled LIFX bulbs! ?

[InstrEd]

My daughter gave out the WiFi password instead of the guest one by mistake around Christmas time. I was in a panic when I got home changing the password. Only one allowed on regular WiFi outside the family is MIL as she was staying over and needed to print stuff. 

[InstrEd]

I tried Ubuntu a while back on a old computer and for basic internet stuff it ran pretty good.   Thing is I don't want to get in deep with Linux at my older age. I rather play with my synths and keyboards LOL. Really is $100-$150 dollars to much for a Windows 10 license especially how long most of us keep our computers.

[msmcleod]

I've used Linux in my professional career for nearly 30 years, and I can honestly say it's a FAR better OS than Windows for anything other than desktop apps.

You can literally let a Linux server run for years without touching it. Security updates are only needed if they're directly connected to the internet, which a lot aren't as they're behind a proxy server, which is in turn firewalled. 

I'll never forget back in 2000 when Oracle released their own Linux version - it ran 9 times faster than Windows on the same hardware.

Linux (well, Unix actually) got the security model right from the beginning. Windows has been trying to retrofit a security model on to an OS that was never designed for it for the past 20 years, whilst still trying to maintain backwards compatibility. Personally, I think given the circumstances they've done a great job, but it's a nightmare when it goes wrong and you've got to check various conflicting settings that are duplicated 4-5 times around the system.

But the main stumbling point for running a DAW under Linux is the drivers. Audio interface manufacturers just don't have any incentive to write drivers for Linux. It's a catch 22 - no-one uses Linux because there's no drivers, and manufacturers won't write Linux drivers because not enough people use Linux. Exactly the same goes for plugins.

Linux will never win the desktop war as it was never really meant for the home market. Ubuntu does a pretty good job, but you soon get caught up with having to deal with driver issues at some point.

[antler]

I never quite understood why people would want a case sensitive file system though - to me it makes no sense why it would be beneficial for readme, Readme, README, and ReadMe to be completely different files. I get it for programming variable names; not so much for file names.

[abacab]

14 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

Linux will never win the desktop war as it was never really meant for the home market. Ubuntu does a pretty good job, but you soon get caught up with having to deal with driver issues at some point.

I believe that you nailed it right there!

[craigb]

1 hour ago, msmcleod said:

You can literally let a Linux server run for years without touching it. 

Boy, I wish that were the case with the one client we have that's using them!  We have almost daily issues with their VM's and containers...

Someday, we'll get around to refreshing them from scratch correctly.

Other than the above, I haven't really done squat with Linux for almost 20 years!  There was a time when I used to run the second-most popular game servers on the West Coast (U.S.) which were all Linux.  I had a dedicated T1 line coming in and ran Quake 1 (where I was ranked at #24 out of over 340,000 players at one time - I was a low ping b@stard too! ?), Counter Strike (my team, one of two in our "clan," made it to the #1 spot on League Republic) and Half Life (I created two popular maps).  Ah, those were fun days!  Besides the servers, I had five full setups so friends could come over for LAN parties. ?

[Starship Krupa]

On 5/6/2020 at 6:07 PM, StudioNSFW said:

the concern in Win7 is more some theoretical zero day coming up that renders that system exploitable, and then that is used to traverse the network to a place where the sensitive data actually lives.  Odds are small but I was paid to be paranoid for a long time and still have those reflexes.  Given my network topology, it would take a targeted attack to get very far...

Look, if you're savvy enough to be that concerned, aren't you savvy enough to spend an afternoon getting your firewall chops honed enough to put something together that would protect you and all the stuff on your network? A 15-year-old Dell tower running a dedicated Linux-based build between your internet gateway and the rest of your network? 20 years ago I found this thing called GNATBox. I don't know if it's still around, but my guess is that by this time it's been forked like crazy and/or there are many alternatives. I used to run my own GNATBox here at my place with my computers behind it.

If you're that paranoid, build a proxy server, your own bulletproof firewall, don't rely on Microsoft to push out security updates. Who knows what backdoors they have built in anyway?

Put multiple NIC's in the aforementioned Linux box, set it up as a router, put your "vulnerable" system in its own 10.X.X.X network and don't allow it to route to the rest of your house. Internet only. There are multiple things you can do besides air gapping it. Air gapping is for kitty-kats.

And at the end of the day, what is that "targeted attack" going to yield an intruder? In my case, I guess someone could steal my identity and ruin their credit rating.... ?

[StudioNSFW]

Well, sure, yeah, and I have the chops....call me lazy but I can spend some amount of time parsing logs and setting up proxy, etc (and always wondering what I missed), or I can pull out the ethernet cord on the network with the gateway. 

Problem with being blue team is you have to be perfect on defense, whereas red team just needs one play.  I already have a segmented network broken out into "Stuff I don't trust or care about" (IoT) and "Stuff I care about and have to be able to trust".  For what I need out of a DAW machine, if it IS on the network at all it is already within the perimeter of the trusted side for NAS access to assets on other machines.  Of course there is  NAT but NAT can be traversed if a system within is exploitable, and even with a firewall, well known ports need to be open within the walls and some to the rest of the internets. 

In the end, I went for the upgrade to Windows 10 after all, ultimately for the simple reason that I finally felt it was time and it is a LOT more convenient to have the system on the LAN

 

 

[Starship Krupa]

I go by the theory/philosophy that just like in the physical world, locks exist to provide a deterrent, and that nothing will stop a truly determined intruder.

My imagined internet  intruder would be kiddies with some kind of bot going around knocking on doors, and when their bot finds an unlocked door, it knocks again, with the idea being that it's looking for targets of opportunity.

If their bot can't even detect "unpatched Windows 7 box," it will just keep going looking for the next target of opportunity. Or if it does, and finds that the Win 7 box is isolated and therefore no fun, on it goes along its journey of discovery. So goes my theory, anyway.

Are people's home networks really targets? Do we know of cases where unpatched devices with security holes were exploited to the detriment of home networks? I'm not talking about Stupid User Tricks like someone opening an email attachment, but OS exploits. They get a lot of press, but those are potential exploits, not cases where someone actually got pwned.

There are now enough unpatched XP systems around that we should know, right? That would be an interesting experiment, build an XP box and leave it connected to the internet while logging network traffic just to see what happens.

I really believe that as long as a person dedicates their Windows 7 computer to DAW use and doesn't do things like online banking with saved passwords on it that they have very little to be concerned about, except for the fact that Windows 10 seems to work better and that DAW companies are no longer concerning themselves with supporting Windows 7.

The worst Windows OS exploit I ever experienced was one around '97 or so where you could send a packet to NT systems that would bounce people out of Quake servers. It took a couple of days for Microsoft to come up with a patch, during which time a few of my deathmatches were spoiled.

[Øyvind Skald]

I really want to jump to Linux. But it is hard to install on an Acer laptop harwired to not boot from other that Windows Installation disks or drives. Ceep me updated for when CbB comes to Mint.

[Starise]

 I guess I'm just an oversimplified person. I use what works for what I need to do. Lots of brainiacs who are probably far superior to me intellectually, at least in this respect, have toiled for countless hours on Microsoft or Apple's dime to make things that are secure and that work well. We need you guys we really do. 

Linux..all you're going to get from me there is a meh. I get more exited over my sandwich at lunch time. It was never a part of my early childhood development. It's an OS. When I buy software I look for solid software that works well and lets me "do productive stuff". Right now that is Windows. Yes I know. They are the devil in disguise. I loaded Ubuntu onto a few computers several years ago that had corrupted WinXP systems. I liked it as a basic web search tool. Forget buying programs for it though. My life is too short to look for ways to make my workflow more complex. Linux looked like a thing for people who love to get into the innards and play with stuff in an OS. 

If someone cracks my credit card I get a notification on all of my devices. Happened last year. Someone tried to buy a small item thinking I wouldn't notice it. Then they tried a larger item. They were unsuccessful. I called the bank. Getting a new card was seamless. I was refunded the money. I use complicated passwords for anything financial. Don't use the same passwords. I suspect the issue came from a motel stay at another state because they had all of my  info. They thought they were canny. They waited a few months before they tried to use the CC#.  The only time I had to stay logged onto my home computer all the time was when I worked from home. Typically I don't  leave my computer running all day. 

I had an attempted breach at my local bank account. They never were able to get in. When I called the bank they stated that someone has managed to get some info on lots of accounts, so I suspect that breach came through the bank servers. Once again, the crooks didn't get anything for their trouble.

[abacab]

On 5/18/2020 at 10:53 AM, Starise said:

My life is too short to look for ways to make my workflow more complex.

This ^^^

I have used Linux for years. But as said previously, Linux is best as a server operating system. Yes, it does do a desktop, but life is too short. Windows does it better. ?

[StudioNSFW]

Troubleshooting on a PeeCee: Get error message.  Put error message in Google.  Find link to the hotfix offered in the Windows KB.

Troubleshooting on a Mac: Get error message.  Put error message in Google. Find article in Apple KB on what setting needs to be changed.

Troubleshooting on a Linux box: Get error message.  Put error message in Google. Discover how many people have had the same error and have asked how to clear it the  community forums.  Find possible solution halfway through a thread on page 4.  Try to update library mentioned in post. Discover it has dependencies downstream. Use package manager to update it all.  Solution doesn't work.  Continue to read thread and discover it didn't work for a lot of other people either. Continue to search. find another possible answer. rinse, repeat.  eventually get the program working, but another program had a dependency on that old gcc+ library and now needs to be updated to work with the replacement.  reinstall app using package manager.  Test both, now they work! 

Super simple!

If I want to fsck around with computers I'll have a girlfriend sit on my Mac mini. 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by StudioNSFW

[Starise]

I'll never think of a Mac Mini in the same way ever again.?

[oneofmany]

I take back previous comments on the year of Linux. It appears that the company many detest is going to allow gui Linux apps to run in their operating system. With the power of Microsoft, it just may happen! 

 

Grant 

[Øyvind Skald]

15 hours ago, oneofmany said:

I take back previous comments on the year of Linux. It appears that the company many detest is going to allow gui Linux apps to run in their operating system. With the power of Microsoft, it just may happen! 

 

Grant 

That means it is better to write a Linux app than "native" .net app.

Microsoft kills themselves again....

In a while people don't need Windows for other than Native Windows apps and Microsoft will be the only one making them....

"Only" thing hinders this is that DAWs must run on native code to minimize latency.

Running CbB on Linux might work, but not for recording and mixing, because of latency.

[oneofmany]

I don't believe that Microsoft is killing themselves with this thinking. With their dual-screen Duo android phone imminent, and their commitment to first party apps for it, this may be a good idea.

They have had terrible experience with their store since back in Window Phone days, and they would benefit from the ability to run other OS apps in tandem with their own. I used to be able to install and run apk apps while a windows phone insider, and I think it makes sense.

If end-users can find the software they need, whether a complex, specialized program, or a silly social media app, and run it seamlessly on Windows, it can only increase the usefulness of the OS to the public. 

 

 

 

 

[abacab]

21 hours ago, oneofmany said:

I take back previous comments on the year of Linux. It appears that the company many detest is going to allow gui Linux apps to run in their operating system. With the power of Microsoft, it just may happen! 

 

Grant 

Maybe Microsoft could replace the core of Windows with the Linux kernel, and just use the Windows GUI as the desktop environment?

Windows 11 anybody?

And they could bolt on the Windows API (Win32) , since they own the code. Then you could then run either native Linux or Windows apps. ?

Edited May 21, 2020 by abacab