this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Yeah, Linux was built as a multi-user system, so user and group permissions have always been a core aspect of it. The "password locked admin account" is just the
root
user, although you should maybe leave that as a "failsafe" account and create a separate user withsudo
er permissions. Every file and folder in Linux has an owner and read/write/execute permissions for the owner, members of its group, and others. By default, users are limited to their own home folder (/home/username
, where folders like Documents are stored) and a handful of world-writable locations (like/tmp
) If you need more specific permissions, ACLs are also available. Or SELinux.The biggest difference regarding distribution choice is that some distros ship with SELinux enabled, while most don't. For everything else there's not much difference, so maybe start with Debian for its community support/resources?
Thanks for the advice! The premission stuff sounds perfect. So by default, basic account can't really mess anything up, even if it's a tech literate person using it?
Correct, users that are not explicitly configured as
sudoers
are limited both in files they can access and commands they can run.Awesome!