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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]

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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] -5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Thank you for the informative response. I was unaware Windows machines employed similar behavior in corporate environments.

Do you think, then, that it would be acceptable for Linux to remove these restrictions in home environments?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

You are more than welcome to remove the need for any passwords at all on the linux systems you admin. Good thing about free software is that you decide how you want it, hack up or put up.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

no. no reason to expand poor practices into linux because microsoft fucked up. we need 'least access required' methodology even at home because the world is full of bad actors.

if microsoft had correclty implemented security into dos/winx.x we wouldnt have had half the virus issues we did in the late 90s.

i think the other half was caused by activex

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I don't think the security issues with windows stem from not having the user enter their password a bunch of times.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

It's Linux. You can remove the restriction yourself.

It's not that hard to either give your user account perma-sudo or to remove the timeout so you only have to enter the password once per login. Slightly more involved would be manually changing which actions require root authentication.