So apparently, Linux Mint's security infrastructure sucks

[jhu]

Linux Mint ISOs compromised with backdoors

Their default security policy doesn't seem to be that great either

By default Linux Mint disables all updates for the following packages, including all security updates:

kernel, dbus, X.org, acpid, mountall, mesa, systemd, plymouth, upstart, *base-files, grub, grub2

Afaik Linux Mint doesn't provide any nice documenation or notification about that, so as a user you have to know about that and enable those updates manually if you care about a secure system. I mean since the release of Mint 17.3 more than ten security bugs have been fixed in the kernel alone, all of them not getting shipped to Mint by default.

The details can be found in some file in the mintUpdate package where they blacklist all those packages.

 

[grandpaflo]

We already have a thread about this:

Beware of hacked ISOs if you downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th, 2016
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?&t=2464731

 

[ControlD]

Mint's update philosophy is the main reason I started looking for a different disto.

 

[Jodell88]

Mint's update philosophy is the main reason I started looking for a different disto.

https://www.archlinux.org/

You're welcome.

 

[ControlD]

https://www.archlinux.org/

You're welcome.

Yeah, I keep meaning to give arch a try. I have always been a little intimidated by it though.

I also have never been able to figure out how to properly dual bool a UEFI motherboard without getting everything completely mucked up, so I have been back in the Windows only world for awhile now. I really want to get Linux installed again, just have been too lazy to do the research.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would not bother trying to get dual boot to work on same drive, it's a pain, just get a separate SSD for each OS. I got tired of having to reboot all the time when I wanted to game so ended up just building a separate windows PC.

 

[ControlD]

I would not bother trying to get dual boot to work on same drive, it's a pain, just get a separate SSD for each OS.

That is how I have always done it in the past with BIOS based systems. When I tried to do the same thing some time ago with Mint, I ended up not being able to boot my Windows drive at all, even though I unplugged it during the Mint install. I had to run a repair of my Windows installation which then left me unable to boot Mint.

I will admit I know damned near nothing about UEFI, but I am wondering if that small boot area that it seems to need has to reside on the same hard drive for every operating system installed. I have been too chicken to try installing Linux on another hard drive while my Windows drive is still plugged in because I don't know what will happen to the Windows UEFI partition.

It is always possible that the Mint installer is what hosed my system and it could all be fixed by now too.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Oh wow maybe I just got lucky. It was a disaster when I decided to take a drive out though, ended up having to reinstall both OSes even the one that was to stay on that computer. I know personally I hate UEFI, it over complicates something that should be kept as simple as possible. I find all of my newer computers actually boot much slower than before as UEFI is much heavier than regular Bios.

 

[ControlD]

I agree with the BIOS being easier comment. On my previous system I had four operating systems, all on their own hard drive. All I had to do to boot something other than the default was to hit F12 while the PC was posting and select the drive I wanted to boot from. It was dead simple. I need to give dual booting a shot again though because I am going to need a Linux system up and running for a couple of projects I want to work on. I guess I can always make a backup and just see what happens.

I'm half convinced UEFI was in part conceived to prevent people from trying "alternative" operating systems.

 

[nakedfrog]

I would not bother trying to get dual boot to work on same drive, it's a pain, just get a separate SSD for each OS. I got tired of having to reboot all the time when I wanted to game so ended up just building a separate windows PC.

This makes me chuckle... the idea that building another PC was more convenient than rebooting :lol:

 

[Crusty]

This makes me chuckle... the idea that building another PC was more convenient than rebooting :lol:

When I dual booted I tended to stay booted to one OS for months at a time... usually coinciding with school semesters.

Now I just do everything on VMs from Windows or in the cloud. I find it the most convenient, I get to game when I want to and still have my dev environments available quickly.

I also tend to build beefy machines so I usually just let the VMs run in the background while I game and have had very few issues.

I've gotta say my experience using Linux command line only is far better than trying to use it as a desktop. I pretty much live in vim and a couple of bash shells using tmux.

 

[VirtualLarry]

This makes me chuckle... the idea that building another PC was more convenient than rebooting :lol:

I did the same thing. I've got a mini-ITX rig, that I transferred my Linux Mint 17.x SSD over to, and then I've got my main G4400 OCed rig with a PCI-E M.2 SSD, that I have Win7 64-bit installed onto.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This makes me chuckle... the idea that building another PC was more convenient than rebooting :lol:

I only have to build the PC once. I probably made up that time within a few weeks by not having to continuously reopen all my applications each time I have to reboot.

VMs don't really work for gaming either, most games won't even LOAD in a VM let alone run, so VM is not an option for that.

 

[TeknoBug]

I wouldn't use Mint as a server.

 

[A5]

I wouldn't use Mint as a server.

Nope. CentOS or Debian stable for servers. Client desktops, probably a non-Unity flavor of Ubuntu.