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Here's a general question, are these vulnerabilities hitting Linux more than BSDs due to hit being a larger target or because its architecture is less secure by
by unethical_ban 6mo ago
Here's a general question, are these vulnerabilities hitting Linux more than BSDs due to hit being a larger target or because its architecture is less secure by design?
- staticassertion 6mo agoLarger target.
- golem14 6mo agoin many ways: - more people are using it (assuming macos is in its own bucket perhaps) - bigger surface areas (esp NetBSD has in my limited understanding just less stuff that can go boom) - more churn, ie more new stuff than can be buggy released more often. Of course, because of that, more eyes are on Linux, so I'm not sure where that security tradeoff is.
- ahartmetz 6mo agoAFAIU, Linux and the BSDs have basically the same architecture - the BSDs just value secure and simple, understandable code more highly than Linux vs features and performance.
- angry_octet 6mo agoThis is really not a correct statement beyond the fact that both are a type of Unix.
- cluckindan 6mo agoLinux is not Unix: it is not derived from AT&T Unix.
- ahartmetz 6mo agoLinux 2.2 or 2.4 or so (possibly only Suse Linux) even had a kernel startup message "Unix compliance testing by UNIFIX" or something, back when Unix was considered more prestigious than Linux. It is / was by some official definition "a Unix", though not "UNIX the trademark by AT&T".
- cluckindan 6mo agoI’m fairly certain they’re referring to POSIX compatibility, not calling a Linux a Unix.
- ahartmetz 6mo agoOh damn, you are probably right.
- angry_octet 6mo agoBy that definition, nor is BSD. It's kind of their whole raison d'étre.
- cluckindan 6mo agoBSD was originally a derivative of AT&T Unix.
- angry_octet 6mo agoYou should read some BSD history.
- cluckindan 6mo agoStill originally a derivative of AT&T Unix. :)
- ahartmetz 6mo agoWhat are the differences? I think of both as Unix-type sytems with macrokernels. I have no practical experience with BSDs.
- ahartmetz 6mo agoJeez, care to reply instead of downvoting? I would really like to know. I do keep an eye on the BSDs as a good example in some areas where Linux is bad.
- unethical_ban 6mo agoDidn't downvote. But if you don't know the difference, then you seemed pretty confident in describing their differences. BSDs are an actual fork of UNIX from the 90s. Linux is a kernel whose code is not forked from UNIX. The userland is most often GNU, which stands for GNU's Not Unix.
- ahartmetz 6mo agoThat's not an architectural difference though. The way that the systems are technically structured seems very, very similar to me. There are quality differences (BSD generally better) and feature and performance differences (Linux generally better), but not basic approach differences - is that wrong?
- rafram 6mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077971 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077971
- vsgherzi 6mo agoIt’s two things. 1. Less eyes are on the bsds 2. Bsds don’t have the same optimizations that Linux has. Bsds generally try to pursue corrrectness That being said there were just a bunch of vulnerabilities in freebsd macOS has had its own dirty cow attack and I know there’s for sure more memory ones just based on the way the xnu kernel works. So no Linux isn’t really worse per say