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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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How come Windows and macOS users don't have to enter their password every time they need administrator privileges? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Isn't it enough to just enter your password once to login, then receive a warning whenever you're about to do something potentially dangerous?

If it's such a big security risk, how come the most popular and widely used operating systems in the world and their users seem to be unaffected by it?

I guarantee, most new users coming to Linux from Windows/macOS are going to laugh and look at you funny if you try to justify entering your password again and again and again.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Windows is historically a "single user OS" whereas Linux is historically a multi-user OS. They're both multi-user now but the philosophy of these backgrounds results in what you see today.

So under Windows you login "as an admin" and don't need passwords for many things - similar to (but very much not the same as) running Linux as root.

Under Linux you login "as a user" and need to elevate permissions for things which can affect other users on the same system. Typically with sudo these days.

These lines are very much blurring so you can do many things under Linux without a password and some things on Windows require "running powershell as an admin".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

NT (and therefore all Windows versions today) always had multi-user security. It's essentially a ported version of DEC Alpha.

On install, the first user is admin, just like the first Linux account is root, or else you wouldn't be able configure the machine.

Windows architecture built on DOS (3.x, 95,etc) lacked any such security, and was developed as a single-user OS (goes back to DOS86).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

NT (and therefore all Windows versions today) always had multi-user security. It’s essentially a ported version of DEC Alpha.

DEC Alpha is a hardware not a software.
I know that WinNT had multi-user capabilities, but I've simplified for conversation.