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I have been running Linux for some months now on my workplace MPB ever since the whole root with empty password fiasco. I don't trust macOS in any manner no mat

I have been running Linux for some months now on my workplace MPB ever since the whole root with empty password fiasco. I don't trust macOS in any manner no matter how many fixes you try and apply to it, for some reason I feel like I simply can't trust macOS security wise for my part. Only darn problem is I can't get my speakers working so I use Bluetooth headphones, but for a workmachine it's fine.

fredsir 8y ago
How does it fare when it comes to battery usage as well and keeping cool and not hot to the touch?
- kjullien 8y ago
  I use an external mouse and keyboard and keep the laptop on a stand so I don't exactly get feedback of the temps under my fingers as you do. But from touching it now and then and from the general noise fan I can tell you that it keeps relatively cool. Relatively meaning that it should be higher than a stock macos install but even then I'd maybe say it runs about 5-10 degrees Celsius higher than that with stock linux drivers.
evilduck 8y ago
Desktop Linux is not exempt from security compromising mistakes either. There’s been plenty of equally bad ones, like pressing backspace 28 times to bypass Grub.
- kjullien 8y ago
  You say "equally bad ones" and give the grub backspace bug as an example. Thing is 1. Grub password != file-system password. If you are using a grub password you are probably also using a user account password, as it is a requirement of a Linux user account. 2. The grub rescue shell that you could access using this overflow also won't let you do much in terms of actual user file-system penetration, even more so if you encrypt your partition. Now for macOS, if you had remote desktop services enabled when the "bug" was discovered, you could simply remote desktop into the machine with these logins. (see https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/935639234437935105 https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/935639234437935105) I agree with you that flaws do exist as in any software, nothing can truly be secure, that's the first rule of security. Thing is I trust a community of people that work openly under constant scrutiny (code reviews, audits...) over a company that has shown repeatedly that they do no testing of any form on their release products (I also think they have completely lost touch with their customers, except if their niche is college kids that need them to write Pages and send emojis to their friends, but I digress). This was showed time and time again, with the most recent fiasco being that they did not test heavy CPU usage on their latest MPB line which meant anybody simply rendering a video with say an obscure tool like Final Cut Pro would effectively throttle your CPU to the point where using all its cores would be equivalent to using one. When a company that is supposed to be all about the "out of the box" experience cannot even deliver a computer that can be used to, let's say, do computing, I think it shows a lack of care for my business, which is entirely fine by me. Other examples : touch-bar (people want physical keys, not emojis, at least I do), butterfly keyboard (had to send my machine in for the free repair program) and the first MPB to offer 32GB of RAM came out a month ago, let that sink in... Apple has entirely lost their focus of computers, understandably so when 90% of their profits come from iPhones sales, and even the iPhone is becoming more and more of a joke every year. The iPhone #bendgate controversy that spawned from the iPhone 6 Plus (the last Apple product I have, and will have purchased for myself) is a perfect example: "We didn't engineer a shitty model, the people are using it wrong!", every iPhone since then is based off of the iPhone 6 Plus design and every iPhone has the same hardware flaws since then, Louis Rossmann did a great video about this (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgv7aktFErA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgv7aktFErA). I'm not saying they are going to go bankrupt, that will probably never happen, but they have lost their "let the technology be a consequence of the journey" philosophy. First people to give up were media content producers, then developers. Maybe now their new niche are college kids as I said earlier... I used to be the biggest Apple fanboy out of them all but where is the new Apple II, the new Powerbook, the new iPod, the new iPhone... They simply don't think this way any more, something is missing. Next laptop I'm asking for at work will 100% not be a MPB, probably a ThinkPad or an XPS Dev Edition.

fredsir 8y ago

How does it fare when it comes to battery usage as well and keeping cool and not hot to the touch?

kjullien 8y ago
I use an external mouse and keyboard and keep the laptop on a stand so I don't exactly get feedback of the temps under my fingers as you do. But from touching it now and then and from the general noise fan I can tell you that it keeps relatively cool. Relatively meaning that it should be higher than a stock macos install but even then I'd maybe say it runs about 5-10 degrees Celsius higher than that with stock linux drivers.

evilduck 8y ago

Desktop Linux is not exempt from security compromising mistakes either. There’s been plenty of equally bad ones, like pressing backspace 28 times to bypass Grub.

kjullien 8y ago
You say "equally bad ones" and give the grub backspace bug as an example. Thing is 1. Grub password != file-system password. If you are using a grub password you are probably also using a user account password, as it is a requirement of a Linux user account. 2. The grub rescue shell that you could access using this overflow also won't let you do much in terms of actual user file-system penetration, even more so if you encrypt your partition. Now for macOS, if you had remote desktop services enabled when the "bug" was discovered, you could simply remote desktop into the machine with these logins. (see https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/935639234437935105 https://twitter.com/patrickwardle/status/935639234437935105) I agree with you that flaws do exist as in any software, nothing can truly be secure, that's the first rule of security. Thing is I trust a community of people that work openly under constant scrutiny (code reviews, audits...) over a company that has shown repeatedly that they do no testing of any form on their release products (I also think they have completely lost touch with their customers, except if their niche is college kids that need them to write Pages and send emojis to their friends, but I digress). This was showed time and time again, with the most recent fiasco being that they did not test heavy CPU usage on their latest MPB line which meant anybody simply rendering a video with say an obscure tool like Final Cut Pro would effectively throttle your CPU to the point where using all its cores would be equivalent to using one. When a company that is supposed to be all about the "out of the box" experience cannot even deliver a computer that can be used to, let's say, do computing, I think it shows a lack of care for my business, which is entirely fine by me. Other examples : touch-bar (people want physical keys, not emojis, at least I do), butterfly keyboard (had to send my machine in for the free repair program) and the first MPB to offer 32GB of RAM came out a month ago, let that sink in... Apple has entirely lost their focus of computers, understandably so when 90% of their profits come from iPhones sales, and even the iPhone is becoming more and more of a joke every year. The iPhone #bendgate controversy that spawned from the iPhone 6 Plus (the last Apple product I have, and will have purchased for myself) is a perfect example: "We didn't engineer a shitty model, the people are using it wrong!", every iPhone since then is based off of the iPhone 6 Plus design and every iPhone has the same hardware flaws since then, Louis Rossmann did a great video about this (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgv7aktFErA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgv7aktFErA). I'm not saying they are going to go bankrupt, that will probably never happen, but they have lost their "let the technology be a consequence of the journey" philosophy. First people to give up were media content producers, then developers. Maybe now their new niche are college kids as I said earlier... I used to be the biggest Apple fanboy out of them all but where is the new Apple II, the new Powerbook, the new iPod, the new iPhone... They simply don't think this way any more, something is missing. Next laptop I'm asking for at work will 100% not be a MPB, probably a ThinkPad or an XPS Dev Edition.