Vocal minority
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn May 15, 2013 11:23 AM EDT |
I've experienced what Katherine Noyes describes in this post myself. I've taken a long break from writing about Linux and I'm just coming back to it now. I also have a couple of "pet" LXers who attack me frequently if I express an opinion at all, let alone one they don't like. The problem is real but it's a vocal minority, not a reflection of the community as a whole. |
| CFWhitman May 15, 2013 11:58 AM EDT |
Isn't it more like, "The Internet: No Rational Discourse Allowed"? |
| Browser72 May 15, 2013 1:31 PM EDT |
The same question could be asked of humanity as a whole. We can't discuss things calmly. Do we stand a chance? I say, "yeah". |
| DrGeoffrey May 15, 2013 2:00 PM EDT |
While the same thought occurred to me, it is also true that, "But, Mom! He did it first!" is not an excuse. |
| kikinovak May 15, 2013 2:02 PM EDT |
I still work once a week as a teacher for "difficult" kids trying to reintegrate them into school life. My advice for Katherine and Dietrich: a healthy mixture of humour and a thick skin. And moderated forums. Even if more often than not, I didn't agree with what LinuxAdvocates wrote, I enjoyed reading the articles, sometimes even commented them (with all respect of urbane manners, should I add). |
| Browser72 May 15, 2013 2:43 PM EDT |
kikinovak: You should try working as the Human Resources Director for any large company. It's about the same experience as working with "difficult" kids really. Those kids do grow up and get jobs, ya know. =) |
| skelband May 15, 2013 3:10 PM EDT |
> "pet" LXers who attack me frequently if I express an opinion at all, If you count me in this, then I only object to the negativity of certain posters on this board. Most of what you have to say I wholeheartedly agree with. Bob and I have certain issues with copyright and its affect on business in general and I accept that you have differing views. That's fine. I think you are misguided but then you also think the same about us :D However, I do object to some of the embarrassingly childish assertions made from time to time about some contributions, particularly from certain anatine quarters. Opinions are fine, and it is OK to get passionate about them, but please could we stick to the facts? In any environment, there are going to be reviews from less experienced contributers, whose articles are likely to be less mature and in-depth compared to some of the more experienced commentators. Sometimes in my child's school, when talking about bullying, it's always someone else. When questioned about why they were making fun or ridiculing the quiet child, they weren't bullying, they were just "having fun". It's one thing to take to task some of the more rabid elements as the darker side of the Internet, but sometimes we could all benefit from taking a long hard look at ourselves and wonder if we could just be a little more constructive. You never know, Mr Dark Duck might cry himself to sleep some nights at some of the caustic ribaldry he has to put up with when all he wanted to do was talk about Linux, in his own way. You might also dwell on what your opinion would be if he was a she. |
| DrGeoffrey May 15, 2013 3:17 PM EDT |
@skelband - Excellent post! "For we have met the enemy, and he is us." |
| schestowitz May 15, 2013 9:22 PM EDT |
Hi, I was invited to write for LA. I saw it from the inside for weeks. What a lot of people don't know (or choose not to know) is that Dietrich has some chronic deletionism issue which drove many contributors away from the site. A lot of the comments never ever show up. You may not know this because the suppressed voices never come to light. I, on he contrary, never ever deleted a blog comment. I give my critics courtesy. But I didn't Dietrich criticise for his policy of deleting comments (for lack of agreement, not for rudeness, so this was purely censorship and perception management). When Dietrich attacked members of the community, as he did to Fab (Linux Outlaws), I usually chose to stay quiet. One day I just said "Fab is not a troll" (after Dietrich had attacked him in public) and those 5 words were enough for him to kick me out. No incidents prior to it. I am not exaggerating. At leas4 4 contributors (now suppressed by him) wrote to me by E-mail about it. I'm not alone. It's not what you know about LA. It's what you don't know about LA. |
| darkstar May 15, 2013 11:11 PM EDT |
I had to do a double take after I read this. I thought this would be something typical of what Dietrich would write...but Katherine? What two have now done will make the whole Linux Community look even worse. |
| kikinovak May 16, 2013 12:52 AM EDT |
I must add that in the end, Mister Schmitz' systematic pro-Fedora and anti-Debian rants got a little tiresome. |
| lietkynes May 16, 2013 4:55 AM EDT |
schestowitz, you are indeed not alone. The other day I wrote a response to Dietrich on his systemd article. My comment was trully well intentioned, although admittedly my words were of criticism (constructive). He not only deleted my comment, but also banned me from commenting on his site. Said deletion prevents me from retreiving my comment for your review...but it trully was not agressive at all. I went back to see if this was a common trend. Well, in one of the earlier articles he deleted a comment from a different person (Package manager article). What is interesting about this case is that I actually challenged ideas in the deleted post. My argument which was more aligned with the opinion of LA was _not_ deleted. And honestly, the comment deleted hardly merited to be so under any standard. For these reasons, I find this latest article to be comically ironic at best...and honestly disturbing. Dietrich's other article on "censorship [being a] symptom" is also starting to raise some flags on how trustworthy LA (and by extension the author) is. Without attributing more seriousness than the situation merits, allow me to vent some of the frustration by presenting a disturbingly similar analogy. The personality in question seems to me equally capricious as the current president of my original country (Argentina), who refuses to acknowledge all opposing views and faults of their own. Actively censoring opinions, presenting ridiculous excuses for any questionable offenses, and overblowing retaliations (e.g., censorship as a symptom). Such an oppressive personality has absolutely no place providing _ME_ any news. Being the internet a free place (sort of), my only recourse is to actively ignore and warn people to stay away from DA. Despite my hilighting of the word "me" to emphasize this as an opinion, I believe the site has no place providing _ANYONE_ with news. I don't know how LXer operates in this regards, but were it to a vote, I would definitely try to rid the site of all LA contributions. They don't do journalism...all they provide is a platform for discussion which is, clearly, broken by oppresion. LXer is also meant to post opinion pieces, but obviously the bar should be placed somewhere. I think LA is underwhelmingly not up to the standard that open source stands for. Please forgive the rant nature of this post...I am trully astonished and frustrated. |
| saltynoob May 16, 2013 5:26 AM EDT |
In this article "Confused by FUSE" on "linuxadvocates.com"
The author Dietrich quoted a bad source to make point. Was told of this mistake, stuck with with it anyway and then when off on a totally irreverent comment path. He later corrected the article. This type of journalism blogging is not good for our community. Andrew Wyatt was the lead for Fuduntu. This guy had to go to one of the website sponsors to get some resolution. I have no idea if the article correction was because of that, but it sad it had to go there. When your opinion is factually wrong or you base your entire article on wrong info and get called on it, you either make a correction or suffer the wrath of your own arrogance. Your readership will continue to mention this arrogance when you continue to support or work with a writer that is guilty of this. Call them trolls if you want, but whats the worst troll? The "knowledgeable" writer or the "average" reader. Its really that simple. All of this started because of his link bait opinion on a new distro called Fuse. (name has been changed to Cloverleaf Linux) Please don’t spread hate or FUD on re-spins Re-spins are important to the community. The majority of them help in Linux adoption by filling a niche or getting over a certain issues. Debian, Fedora, or Arch are the most popular parents of re-spins but can be hassle for some. Whether it be desktop environment, installation headaches, or the FOSS religious aspect, re-spins bypass all that and make using Linux easier. If you been using Linux for a while, than your opinion on a respin irrelevant. Its not made for you. Move on!! Adoption no matter what distro, in my eyes should be always be the goal. *link bait = spreading factually wrong info disguised as opinion to get clicks to a web site.* |
| kikinovak May 16, 2013 6:35 AM EDT |
Maybe the site should rename itself. Something like linuxprosecutors.com would be more accurate. |
| jazz May 16, 2013 7:13 AM EDT |
In this article Katherine Noyes fails to see that Linux Advocates is quickly becoming the tabloid section of the Linux press. Don't blame your readers! |
| linux4567 May 16, 2013 9:59 AM EDT |
caitlyn, you very much come across like a Redhat-fanboi (or rather fangirl) in many of your comments. While this doesn't justify personal attacks it's inevitable that it attracts them. That said, as I said in other posts here too, why don't we focus on debating arguments rather than attacking people? The recent attacks on Dietrich and LA in this thread and in others reflect very badly on the people doing them. Lets argue about the messages not the messengers!! |
| Fettoosh May 16, 2013 10:15 AM EDT |
Quoting:Maybe the site should rename itself. Something like linuxprosecutors.com would be more accurate. Funny thing about names. You name someone Truth, turns out to be a lair. You name someone Brave, turns out to be a coward. And so it goes. If LA was to mention what is great about Linux along with what is not so great, I think most Linux users would be more appreciative. But to totally concentrate and exaggerate things that are bad makes it obvious that "Linux Executioners" is more indicative and telling name of what the LA site is all about. |
| caitlyn May 17, 2013 7:37 PM EDT |
I have, at various times, been accused of being a fan for Red Hat, ROSA, VectorLinux, opneSUSE, Mandriva, Fedora, Ubuntu (long time ago), Wolvix, SalixOS, and even Slackware (on DistroWatch, if that matters). I have also been accused of being an Ubuntu hater, a Slackware hater, an openSUSE hater, and so on... If you have an opinion and a platform to get that opinion out you're going to have people who, instead of merely disagreeing, will attack the messenger. I think I've learned to take such attacks with a grain of salt. p.s.: I should be writing, at least as a guest, on Linux Advocates shortly. |
| Dietrich May 18, 2013 10:04 AM EDT |
I am absolutely 'thrilled' to say Caitlyn has accepted my invitation to write. She has a sterling background and reputation as a true Linux Advocate. Dietrich T. Schmitz Linux Advocates Site Owner |
| linux4567 May 18, 2013 12:13 PM EDT |
caitlyn, just to be clear I didn't accuse you of anything I merely stated that "you very much come across like a Redhat-fanboi (or rather fangirl) in many of your comments". This is just an observation not an accusation and I only mentioned it to explain IMHO why your posts tend attract personal attacks. I don't think I have ever attacked you as I don't like personal attacks, I prefer to debate opinions rather than people (I do sometimes slip up though). |
| flufferbeer May 18, 2013 1:08 PM EDT |
@caitlyn, >> p.s.: I should be writing, at least as a guest, on Linux Advocates shortly. Great! Now vampire Dietrich can Live again through using you, the admitted BloodRed Hat advocate, to suck out more clicks for the LA site *he* owns (indirect link-baiting?), as well as to provide a certain degree of cloaking for his selectively eliminating any and all rationally discoursing comments he happens to disapprove of, e.g., those of Schestowitz and lietkynes above. Fangs alot, caitlyn! ;| 2c on this. |
| caitlyn May 18, 2013 1:18 PM EDT |
@linux4567: I didn't say you accused me of anything. I merely pointed out what my experience is. If you praise something you're a fan, if you criticize something you're a hater. There is no winning. I just published a piece explaining why I recommend Red Hat on my personal Linux blog and some anonymous Slackware fan claimed it was a "corporate suck up" piece. Uh huh... That was my point in my first comment that started the thread: the Linux community does have a very high level of hostility and religious zealotry towards distros, applications, desktops, you name it. Differing opinions are simply not tolerated and the main way of expressing that is through derision, scorn and personal attacks. I've written about it and called it a major problem (perhaps THE major problem) in the Linux community and sadly that never seems to change. See my 2009 article for O'Reilly at: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/11/the-problem-with-the-li... Is Katherine Noyes' piece justified? IMHO, yes. Have Dietrich Schmitz and Katherine Noyes handled the controversies around some of their articles as well as they could have? That's not for me to say. When I moderate the ban hammer is the absolutely last resort. It's something I, personally, would try to avoid using on prominent developers and writers if at all possible. Ultimately, though, it's their website and they can and should do as they see fit in terms of determining what level of discourse is acceptable. |
| linux4567 May 18, 2013 1:36 PM EDT |
Actually being a fanboi means idolising something and only praising it without pointing out the drawbacks and flaws. No software is perfect, I'm a RHCE (now expired) myself and have worked both on RHEL and on SLES systems (and on other Unix platforms). I do appreciate RHEL a lot and use Centos and SL privately but that doesn't stop me from criticising RH whenever they do something I don't agree with, like for example systemd. So whenever you write a piece that's only full of praise you shouldn't be surprised if you get accused of being a fanboi or that it's a "corporate suck up" piece. It would help if you balance the praise by pointing out drawbacks that you are aware of. |
| caitlyn May 18, 2013 2:27 PM EDT |
I actually strongly disagree with what a lot of you just wrote. I don't idolize any piece of software or any operating system. After six months of almost exclusively supporting SLES and SLED it's been a breath of fresh air to get back to Red Hat and it's clones. I was also following up on an article praising Red Hat for LSB compliance and I continued with why I prefer the distro. When doing advocacy (and that's a lot of what I do, and not just in FOSS) you don't tear down what you are deliberately building up. OTOH, when I write a review, I always cover both the positive and the negative. What I choose to include is always determined by the purpose of the article and the target audience. In my personal Linux blog I share my experiences and people are free to make of them what they will. The Slackware comment (who did not have the courage to leave his or her name) was attacking me based on previous comments about Slackware for the most part. I also find that community particularly intolerant of criticism. Once again, that's probably a vocal minority but, wow, are they vocal. Regarding systemd, I believe it is a change that is very welcome and very much needed. That isn't because it started at Red Hat. If it came from Canonical or SUSE I'd make precisely the same comments. Once again, I'll have an article on systemd and why I support the change on Linux Advocates shortly. |
| Fettoosh May 18, 2013 3:45 PM EDT |
Quoting: the Linux community does have a very high level of hostility and religious zealotry towards distros, applications, desktops, you name it. Sounds like some thing that comes from MS fan-boys/girls. I wouldn't call it religious zealotry, it is passionate and strong opinions not hostility. Can't stand the heat, leave the kitchen. |
| kikinovak May 18, 2013 5:34 PM EDT |
A quote from Patrick Volkerding on LQ, in a discussion about LSB compliance: "The LSB doesn't require that a system use RPM as its usual packaging tool, only that RPM is present so that RPM packages can be installed. Same with the init structure... there's no requirement that all init scripts be of the S... K... variety, only that if a package installs such scripts into the usual directories that they will work (they do)." Given his distribution has been around longer than Red Hat and Debian, I guess he of all people should know. |
| caitlyn May 18, 2013 5:40 PM EDT |
Quoting:I wouldn't call it religious zealotry, it is passionate and strong opinions not hostility. Can't stand the heat, leave the kitchen.This may win the award for the comment I have most strongly disagreed with ever. First, I'm clearly not the only one who sees it as zealotry and hostility. I'm one of many writers who have made that point. Oh, and no, I won't leave. I will work and fight to make the community better. |
| kikinovak May 18, 2013 5:44 PM EDT |
@caitlyn. You often praise enterprise class Linux without missing an opportunity to sneer at hobbyist distributions. May I curtly remind you of the fact that Noah's ark was a hobbyist project and the Titanic a professional product? |
| Fettoosh May 18, 2013 6:02 PM EDT |
Quoting:Oh, and no, I won't leave. I will work and fight to make the community better. First off, what I meant by "leave the kitchen" is to leave the argument. That is what I have learned to do on the Internet. 2nd, good luck with changing peoples passion, and "religious zealotry" doesn't help much in that regards. |
| Dietrich May 18, 2013 9:42 PM EDT |
@caitlyn, If you would prefer to moderate your own column, I am fine with that. Just let me know, and I'll let you or your designee(s) moderate your posts. pm me and we can discuss how to best manage. thx --Dietrich |
| flufferbeer May 18, 2013 11:11 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh, >> I wouldn't call it religious zealotry, it is passionate and strong opinions not hostility. Can't stand the heat, leave the kitchen. A Yiddish word I heard someone else say sounds like much like "shlameal", and it stands for the person that always gets figuratively BURNED in everything she or he does, i.e., the sucker (or maybe I'd better say "suckee" ;> Dunno, maybe this applies to caitlyn if she overpassionately sticks her neck in heated frying-pan arguments and ends up falling into the kitchen fire instead.... When, oh when, will she ever learn? 2 more c's |
| jdixon May 19, 2013 10:35 AM EDT |
> The Slackware comment (who did not have the courage to leave his or her name) was attacking me based on previous comments about Slackware for the most part. Probably. Allow me to apologize on behalf of less idiotic Slackware users. > I also find that community particularly intolerant of criticism. Slackware gets a fair amount of unjustified criticism in addition to that which is justifiable. It makes some of the users a bit touchy on their triggers. That's human nature in action. There is no justification for the anonymous attack though. |
| caitlyn May 19, 2013 12:44 PM EDT |
@jdixon: You have no reason at all to apologize. Even when we disagree your comments are always respectful and thoughtful. I also think the members you term "idiotic" are a vocal minority, quite probably a small minority, of the Slackware community. Still, they are enough to put me off and I suspect I am not alone in that. @kikinovak: Thank you for admitting that Slackware really is a hobbyist distro. When I said the same thing in a review I was raked over the coals for it big time. I was told again and again how suitable Slackware should be for any and all businesses when really, it's not. I don't sneer at hobbyist distros at all and I am sorry you've taken my comments that way. I do Linux for a living. I believe you do too. Most of my writing is, consequently, either from a business perspective or takes business into account and perhaps you are misconstruing that as derision. My complaints with Slackware aren't technical at all. It certainly isn't about quality, which I generally praise. It's either about the community, which includes a significant number of people who tolerate absolutely no criticism or it's about claims made on the website about how "easy" Slackware is when, by any accepted definition of usability, that term really doesn't fit. Also, looking at Linux from a business perspective (which is what I usually do) it's hard to recommend anything that requires extra work or is developed by a small and fairly opaque team. Once again, that does not reflect on quality, which is excellent, but rather where Slackware fits. In terming in a "hobbyist distro" you've really hit the nail on the head and I completely agree with you. |
| jdixon May 19, 2013 5:55 PM EDT |
> I was told again and again how suitable Slackware should be for any and all businesses when really, it's not. Well, we both know it can be made suitable with a moderate amount of work But the key point, which I think echoes your view, is: Why should anyone bother? There are already distros out there built from the ground up to meet specific business needs. Why would any administrator want to go to the time and trouble of setting Slackware to duplicate that functionality when the simple alternative is to just to use another distribution that already has it. I like Slackware a lot. It's my distribution of choice for my personal machines, and I've tried a fair number of them. But there are things it doesn't do out of the box (pam and selinux, to name two) that other distros do and that many businesses need (or think they need, which amounts to the same thing for this purpose). It also doesn't have a large company behind it offering 24x7 enterprise level support. Things like that matter to large companies (again, whether they should or not). For these reasons, Slackware simply isn't suitable for many businesses. And the distro that is, more so than any other, is Red Hat. Pointing this out isn't a corporate suck up piece, nor is it an attack on Slackware, it's merely pointing out the obvious. > ...or it's about claims made on the website about how "easy" Slackware is when, by any accepted definition of usability, that term really doesn't fit. Now, there we'll simply have to continue to disagree. As I've noted before, ease of use is subjective to the individual. The best you can hope for is a broad consensus which appeals to the majority of people but not necessarily to any individual. In fact, it comes very close to certain TOS forbidden topics in that regard. |
| vainrveenr May 19, 2013 9:40 PM EDT |
Quoting:Now, there we'll simply have to continue to disagree. As I've noted before, ease of use is subjective to the individual. The best you can hope for is a broad consensus which appeals to the majority of people but not necessarily to any individual. In fact, it comes very close to certain TOS forbidden topics in that regard. Perhaps much less one of those "certain TOS forbidden topics" than the discussion and debate of a decidedly political nature in the 'Best news in a decade' thread or previous borderline comments in this very thread. As the LXer 'Terms of Service and Code of Conduct' does mention verbatim:: Quoting:... 6. Do not place any material on our service that could be considered offensive, indecent, abusive, hateful, harassing, libelous, profane, vulgar or unlawful. Our audience tends to be professional in nature, and we have the right, but not the obligation, to remove, edit, or relocate any content that we feel violates the standards of our site. Because of the real-time nature of our forums, it is not always possible for us to remove offensive material immediately.(Source: http://lxer.com/module/pages/v/12/) |
| kikinovak May 20, 2013 3:43 AM EDT |
@caitlyn. I just forgot the quotation marks. My fault :o) Yes, I do use Linux all the time for a living. Oddly enough, I used RHEL (the real thing, not CentOS) for the last job, because the client (the French Oceanographic Institute) needed some specific software that's only certified for Red Hat Workstations. For my bigger clients, it's mostly a mix of RHEL, Oracle Linux and CentOS. I take care of some dedicated servers in a datacenter. Until a year ago or so, I've been using either CentOS or Debian for the job, although Debian curiously lacks of long term support. Someone who opted for stable six months ago only has a year of support left for Squeeze. So I decided to give Slackware a spin on these machines, and, well, it does the job perfectly. It has long term support, security updates are often handled faster than the big players (read the ChangeLog, you'll see). And until I'm sufficiently intelligent to grasp the point of SELinux, traditional security tools will do :o) But most of the time, I have to install desktop clients and workstations, more often than not on older hardware (because this is South France). Until 2011, I've been using my personal blend of CentOS on steroids for the job. Now I configured the same mix on Slackware with Xfce, and it's perfect. Meaning clients work on it 24/7, and I have zero complaints. Here's my company's "Enterprise Desktop": http://www.microlinux.fr/desktop_linux.php And here's the innards (feel free to give it a spin): https://github.com/kikinovak/desktop I guess the word "simple" has to be taken in a specific meaning with Slackware. It means "no useless stuff added" or "no cr@ppy assistant getting in your way". That's Slackware's simplicity. Which also makes it the greatest distribution for teaching. My students will confirm this. In conclusion, let me quote my latin teacher at the University in Montpellier, who once said: there's no "best" latin grammar book. The best latin grammar book is the one you're most comfortable with. I guess the same thing applies to the various Linux distributions. I have some guru admin friends (by "guru" I mean hackers doing security research for the French Army and the likes) who do great stuff on Hardened Gentoo, on DIY+LFS, on Ubuntu, on openSUSE or whatever. I know about your grief with the Slackware community, Caitlyn. As far as I'm concerned, I find them to be a very pleasant and helpful bunch, and extremely competent. But then, you don't walk into a Hells Angels meeting shouting out loud that Harley Davidson is cr@p and Honda is better. :oD Cheers from a fellow Linux admin. |
| jdixon May 20, 2013 6:45 AM EDT |
> But then, you don't walk into a Hells Angels meeting shouting out loud that Harley Davidson is cr@p and Honda is better. :oD Event though it's true :) |
| notbob May 20, 2013 8:20 AM EDT |
> Event though it's true Another personal opinion stated as fact. A never-ending problem in this group and the basis for far too many pointless arguments. |
| jdixon May 20, 2013 8:54 AM EDT |
> Another personal opinion stated as fact Where did I indicate it was other than a personal opinion as to what was true? I had thought the smiley at end would be a give away as to that. Mind you, I'm sure I could come up with some statistics to act as a factual basis for that statement if you really wanted, but since this is an free software forum, not a motorcycle one, I don't think there would be a lot of interest. Sometimes a comment is meant as humorous exaggeration, not a factual accounting. |
| notbob May 20, 2013 9:07 AM EDT |
> Where did I indicate it was other than a personal opinion as to what was true? ....and weasel capacity is unrivaled. ;) |
| jdixon May 20, 2013 9:28 AM EDT |
> ...and weasel capacity is unrivaled. I'm pleased to know that my powers of deception and malleability are so obviously profound. I must have missed my calling and should be in sales/marketing rather than IT. |
| Bob_Robertson May 20, 2013 12:11 PM EDT |
> This may win the award for the comment I have most strongly disagreed with ever. Darn, I've been dethroned. |
| CFWhitman May 20, 2013 1:50 PM EDT |
I don't like to use the word "easy" to describe Slackware. What Slackware tends to be in comparison to other distributions is "simple." Some people think those two words mean the same thing. I think that depends on context. When it comes to a distribution I would say that "easy" means that it takes less effort to use, while "simple" means that it takes less effort to understand. So, yes, "simple" can be the same thing as "easy" as long as you are talking about understanding rather than using Slackware. |
| caitlyn May 20, 2013 3:22 PM EDT |
@CFWhitman: I can't disagree with what you've written here. If it was explained that way on the Slackware website the comment in my reviews would never have been written. I'll note that distros like Arch Linux and CRUX don't call themselves "easy" and yet they are basically in the same category as Slackware. @kikinovak: You are more than intelligent enough to fully grasp and take advantage of SELinux. From the SELinux wiki: Quoting:SELinux also adds finer granularity to access controls. Instead of only being able to specify who can read, write or execute a file, for example, SELinux lets you specify who can unlink, append only, move a file and so on. SELinux allows you to specify access to many resources other than files as well, such as network resources and interprocess communication (IPC). As everyone knows, web servers are under perpetual attack. When I work on sites that have had security incidents one of the things I usually do is to make sure a sane SELinux policy is in place. If we're talking Apache/LAMP I also use mod_security and lock things down that way at the web server level. I've been very good at mitigating security issues on web servers and, indeed, on other production servers. SELinux is important because it defines clearly what can and can't be done to a file or resource by a given user or group. |
| kikinovak May 21, 2013 1:45 AM EDT |
Arch does call itself "simple", exactly that. Just take a peek at the title of the "Arch way" page. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way As for SELinux, I have yet to encounter a situation on my public machines where traditional security tools won't do the job to keep the insisting guys from China, Russia and Nigeria out. Some folks use a sledgehammer to drive a nail into a wall. I'm more a hammer guy. |
| caitlyn May 21, 2013 3:50 PM EDT |
SELinux is the opposite of a sledgehammer. It allows fine control in a way traditional Linux permissions do not. |
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