Two years into full-time Linux and I’m finally burning the distro-hopping cycle. I fell for the Arch/AUR trap for a while, but I got tired of spending my weekends debugging file manager crashes instead of maintaining my home lab.
Switched back to Fedora, and it’s boring in exactly the way I need it to be. It’s a stable launchpad for my projects, not the project itself.
Linux in general is not secure for desktop users. There’s basically never sandboxing, and when there is it’s usually weak, antivirus is rarely used, and developers aren’t vetted as stringently as with paid software. Apparently Fedora and OpenSUSE take these issues more seriously, and SE Linux does somewhat restrict what malicious things a piece of software can do.
It’s a pretty widely held view that Fedora and OpenSUSE are more secure than Debian, Ubuntu, and Arch for desktop users but I’m not really an expert so I’m mostly retroactively justifying what I’ve heard second-hand.
You’re mostly right, but I disagree about the bit about paid software and vetted developers. Open source like Linux is also mostly developed by programmers hired by companies, so there’s no difference there. Proprietary software has also had problems with malicious developers and there’s less transparency there.
Desktop Linux so far was meant to be a fun general purpose computing experience for geeks. Throwing extra security layers on it evidently spoils some of that fun, you can see how Linux nerds react to things like Polkit, SELinux, Wayland or Flatpak. But PCs in general suck at security, they’re based on legacy tech from an era when cybersecurity wasn’t even a concept.
The XZ Utils thing is a prime example of the risks Linux faces.
Mobile operating systems in general are far more secure than Desktop operating systems. ChromeOS seems to be the most secure desktop option, but given the privacy implications of a Google operating system and the lock-down of Google Play I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.
There’s also https://secureblue.dev/
Tried it. Firstly it wouldn’t install. Secondly, the developer lead developer is a very private person and I don’t trust a Linux distro made by someone who is so secretive.