this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024

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Privacy

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Secure Operating Systems (Microkernels seems to be the future) (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

44 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am not satisfied with Linux's security and have been researching alternative open source OS for privacy and security So far only thing that's ready to use is GrapheneOS (Based on Android) but that's not available on desktop (Though when Android release Desktop mode it may become viable)

Qubes OS is wrapper around underlying operating systems, so it doesn’t really fix for example Linux’s security holes it just kinda sandbox/virtualize them

OpenBSD is more secure than Linux on a base level but lack mitigations and patches that are added to linux overtime and it's security practices while good for it's time is outdated now

RedoxOS (Written in Rust) got some nice ideas but sticks to same outdated practices and doesn't break the wheel too much, and security doesn't seems to be main focus of OS

Haiku and Serenity are outright worse than Linux, especially Haiku as it's single user only

Serenity adopted Pledge and Unveil from OpenBSD but otherwise lacks basic security features

All new security paradigms seems to be happening in microkernels and these are the ones that caught my eyes

None of these are ready to be used as daily driver OS but in future (hopefully) it may change

Genode seems to be far ahead of game than everything else

Ironclad Written in ADA

Atmosphere And Mesosphere Open Source Re-implementation of Nintendo Switch's Horizon OS, I didn't expected this to be security-oriented but seems like Nintendo has done a very solid job

Then there are Managarm, HelenOS, Theseus but I couldn't figure out how secure they are

Finally there is Kicksecure from creators of Whonix, Kicksecure is a linux distro that plans to fix Linux's security problems

if you know of any other OS please share it here

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[+] [email protected] -6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Server security is not completely same as desktop one, Linux kernel is spaghetti code with very large attack surface, only reason it's not exploited more is Linux Desktop is not as lucrative target as Windows, Proper sandboxing doesn't exist and is half assed, Qubes is the only one properly doing sandboxing on Linux

OpenBSD and Qubes seems best solution so far but neither are ideal

Qubes doesn't address Linux's security problems it just sandbox/virtualize them and it requires beefy hardware

Fedora Silver Blue doesn't do anything special really it's your normal linux distro just immutable and relies on flatpaks (On another note Flatpaks sandbox are easy to break and most programs don't use it properly)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

only reason it’s not exploited more is Linux Desktop is not as lucrative target as Windows

It would be much more lucrative to exploit the Linux servers, Android (based on Linux) phones, embedded Linux devices,... than that tiny niche of Windows desktops could ever be.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 months ago

Linux servers exploit is different than Linux desktop exploit and 1000% different than exploiting Android

It's general misconception that Android is just Linux but it's not, it's like saying Linux is just GCC compiler

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

You already said that openbsd has pros and cons. I'm not sure how you get to the conclusion that it's better overall than linux at the same timr as stating that it's behind linux.

https://lemmy.ml/comment/10078459

This is the comment. There was a duplicate which is why I deleted it. Somehow you answered to the one I deleted.

Anyway, I was refering to secure blue, not silverblue.

Your criticism about flatpak implies that the user installs the malicious app in the first place. Just don't. As dumb as it sounds but the user can be the best antimalware shield. Just don't install crap. Facebook is tracking you? Don't install it. Look at xz, and how well it was detected and how quickly everything was fixed. Don't install unknown software. Use trusted sources. Listen to other people. Flatpak is in a good path. I'm not sure why criticing it leads to abandoning instead of improving it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Many Flatpaks bundle libraries which aren't available in any runtime. There have been cases of non-malicious Flatpaks (on Flathub) containing known vulnerable versions of libraries. Is a user expected to cross reference a Flatpak's manifest with known library vulnerabilities before installing it?

Flatpak's "sandbox" (more of a container really) also breaks internal sandboxing mechanisms used by some other apps notably Chromium-based browsers (they use some hack to use Flatpak's sandbox instead but I doubt it is as secure).

Flatpak is not a security tool, it is a software distribution tool (Edit: BTW, the Flatpak project doesn't even claim to be about security).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Let's improve flatpak, instead of abandoning it :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Personally I don't see the harm in abandoning Flatpak, the technologies developed to support it (bubblewrap, desktop portals and the secure contexts Wayland protocol to name a few) are far more important and can be used independently.

I think Flatpak has the potential to be good, if distros use it as their primary package manager with a sane (not Flathub) repository (Fedora has a well maintained Flatpak repo, for example). Otherwise, for the average user, installing a Flatpak from Flathub when there is a distro package available might seem like a good idea because they heard about sandboxing, but in many cases it will actually be more secure to just use the distro package.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I am not native English speaker so sorry for misunderstandment

I didn't say it's overall better

I said even though on base level OpenBSD is much more clean and secure than Linux it lacks or lags behind Linux in adding mitigations for security vulnerabilities

And there are far less eyes on OpenBSD so many vulnerabilities don't get discovered in first place

Any software can be malicious even essential ones just look at recent Xz vulnerability (And it was discovered by sheer chance), OS should have systems in place like proper sandboxing, permissions (Not half baked one like flatpak) ...