submitted 2 months ago by hbar@lemmy.ml to c/linux4noobs@programming.dev

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Hi, I've been fiddling with PopOS the past year on an old laptop and I like it. I'm getting ready to convert my windows 10 desktop to Pop and leave windows behind entirely, before I do I want to be sure I understand a few security concepts.

I've read suggestions that say don't run as root, create a separate user account and only use root when necessary. Do you give that user account sudo privileges? If so, is that any different from just being root?

Also I've installed the ufw firewall but left it with default settings. Is that something I need to look into more?

Thanks in advance!

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[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 11 points 2 months ago

If so, is that any different from just being root?

In security terms it's slightly different, in that if an attacker gains access to your account they would have to do a small amount of trivial work to gain root. But yeah it makes no real difference to security. Cargo cultists would object to this but they don't know what they're talking about:

https://xkcd.com/1200/
Local privilege escalation bugs are very common in Linux.
You don't even need that - it's trivial to MitM sudo.

I think the real reason to use a normal user account and give it sudo privileges is that it prevents you accidentally hosing your system. You can't accidentally rm -rf /.

Another reason you might not want to do it is that a fair amount of software will get pissy with you if you run it as root and tell you not to.

[-] hbar@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago

Thanks, this is very clear.

this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025

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