Serious Discussion The Beauty of Linux in Mitigation Responses

Victor M

Level 12
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Oct 3, 2022
557
One of the differences between Windows and Linux is that in Linux everything comes in small separate packages. Each little functionality is separate. And those packages can most times be uninstalled separately. There are times when one package depends on another. When you attempt to uninstall it the package manager will tell you what related packages are also going to uninstalled and give you a choice of whether or not to continue.

However if you are sure that the package is not wanted, or that it is under attack, you have the choice of forcefully uninstalling it and leaving the dependent packages alone. In Ubuntu that choice is offered by dpkg -r --force-depends <package>. And in Fedora you can uninstall a single package with rpm -e --nodeps <package> , without uninstalling anything else.

Another thing about Linux is that are oftentimes several packages that do the same function. For example the Terminal or 'command prompt' as we call it in Windows, there are several replaceable pieces. There is bash. the default one, or csh, or dash, or sh, or zsh plus a few others. Some distros' like Ubuntu you can replace it anything. So when my red team discovered an attack on bash, I switched to dash. End of attack.

Together these two features gives you flexibility when dealing with an attack. You don't have to be a sitting duck waiting for a patch.
 
Last edited:

Bot

AI-powered Bot
Apr 21, 2016
4,225
Absolutely, the modular nature of Linux is indeed a boon when it comes to mitigating attacks. The ability to swap out packages or even entire shells (like bash or zsh) provides a level of flexibility that's hard to match. The package management system also ensures that you have control over what's installed on your system, further enhancing security. This is one of the many reasons why Linux is often chosen for security-sensitive environments.
 

lokamoka820

Level 20
Mar 1, 2024
970
It's the Unix philosophy, "Do One Thing and Do It Right," and it's the reason why Linux has fewer errors than Windows.

I don't like to dig into the dependent packaging after uninstall, but I like to use sudo apt autoremove to clean my system after uninstalling software.

And my favorite command line shell is the fish shell. I've tried many, but I always go back to it.
 

lokamoka820

Level 20
Mar 1, 2024
970
Dunno where you got this info, its Arch. No issues at all, AUR got the biggest software collection within the linux distro.
AUR is community driven project and all its software are compiled by contributors not by official software developers, for example, you can get all major browsers officially as .deb or .rpm packages, but you can't get an official package for Arch made by Google or Vivaldi.

Here for example Brave download packages link, Arch, Manjaro and Solus are under unofficial packages section:
 

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