Even a decade ago, it took longer to download a Linux distro than it did to make a bootable disc, boot to it, and install.
Seriously, the very first time I installed Linux on anything was maybe twenty minutes of actual effort total, with the rest being waiting for things to download or process during install. I can’t call that crazy lengths. Not everyone is as confident in following instructions and willing to take a risk, but it isn’t some kind of hyper specialized skill, and the very fact of a bootable storage means you can verify a given install would work on your hardware.
Now, changing roms on android? I would agree that doing so is absurdly more difficult than it should be, and there’s more pitfalls that can screw things up. But I didn’t get the impression you meant that.
if you think your average linux distro is trustworthy, you’re mad.
there’s a tons of binary blobs, not to mention all the known and unknown hardware backdooers that you can’t remove by running linux.
most of the software your average user installs is untrustworthy as well.
the security model of linux is outdated at best, no proper isolation of programs. the linux kernel is leaky as heck and filled with tons of bloat.
You can get a Intel ME disabled laptop or a 15 year old one one that never had it, then put on some FSF approved OS that bans closed source software and compiles everything from scratch, isolates every program like with jails or Qubes or one of the newfangled container based OSes and tunnels all your internet traffic through some sorf of anonymization layer like Tor or I2P and ideally it’s all happening in memory only and never writes to disk. But then again we know there are hidden microcontrollers with full memory access hidden behind obscure instructions in CPUs.
You can’t tell me those aren’t insane lengths.
Practically speaking there is no such thing as a “trustworthy” computer and suggeting linux magically makes it trustworthy is laughable. Completely ridiculous.
You need hardware disconnects on all sensors and physical obstruction of devices like cameras in order to have some level of certainty that they aren’t being misused.
Is it really insane though?
Even a decade ago, it took longer to download a Linux distro than it did to make a bootable disc, boot to it, and install.
Seriously, the very first time I installed Linux on anything was maybe twenty minutes of actual effort total, with the rest being waiting for things to download or process during install. I can’t call that crazy lengths. Not everyone is as confident in following instructions and willing to take a risk, but it isn’t some kind of hyper specialized skill, and the very fact of a bootable storage means you can verify a given install would work on your hardware.
Now, changing roms on android? I would agree that doing so is absurdly more difficult than it should be, and there’s more pitfalls that can screw things up. But I didn’t get the impression you meant that.
if you think your average linux distro is trustworthy, you’re mad.
there’s a tons of binary blobs, not to mention all the known and unknown hardware backdooers that you can’t remove by running linux.
most of the software your average user installs is untrustworthy as well.
the security model of linux is outdated at best, no proper isolation of programs. the linux kernel is leaky as heck and filled with tons of bloat.
You can get a Intel ME disabled laptop or a 15 year old one one that never had it, then put on some FSF approved OS that bans closed source software and compiles everything from scratch, isolates every program like with jails or Qubes or one of the newfangled container based OSes and tunnels all your internet traffic through some sorf of anonymization layer like Tor or I2P and ideally it’s all happening in memory only and never writes to disk. But then again we know there are hidden microcontrollers with full memory access hidden behind obscure instructions in CPUs.
You can’t tell me those aren’t insane lengths.
Practically speaking there is no such thing as a “trustworthy” computer and suggeting linux magically makes it trustworthy is laughable. Completely ridiculous.
You need hardware disconnects on all sensors and physical obstruction of devices like cameras in order to have some level of certainty that they aren’t being misused.
linux is not secure