imo it’s kinda like bash’s bloatness. Sure, I’d use a less bloated shell but I need bash as a bash interpreter regardless, so using a smaller shell would actually be more bloat. In a similar way you already have systemd, so you don’t really gain any more bloat by having this alias for systemd-run or how it’s called.
I’m typing this from my orange pi zero 3 w/ dietpi installed… aaaaaaand I don’t really “hate”, but more like “not care about it anymore”. Sure, its privacy concerns are truly a nightmare, but eh. It’s good to have options, that’s all. Even if one said “options” can be more harmful than good.
run0 is just an alias for a part of systemd, so installing doas too would be useless bloat. Another thing to note is that doas is just smaller sudo, you still wouldn’t use 99 % of its features.
edit: also from my totally surface level understanding both sudo and doas “elevate your privileges” which is supposedly unnecessary attack surface. run0 does it in a better way which I do not understand.
also from my totally surface level understanding both sudo and doas “elevate your privileges” which is supposedly unnecessary attack surface. run0 does it in a better way which I do not understand.
sudo and doasare setuid binaries, a special privileged bit to tell the kernel that this binary is not run as the user starting it, but as the owner. A lot of care has to be incorporated into these to make sure you don’t escalate your privileges as the default interface is very limited, being a single bit.
Another issue with this approach is that since you’re running this from your shell, the process will by default inherit all environment variables, which can be convenient, but also annoying (since a privileged process might write into your $HOME) or upright dangerous.
run0doesn’t use that mechanism. systemd is, being a service manager at its core, something launching binaries in specialized environments, e.g. it will start an nginx process under the nginx user with a private tmp, protecting the system from writes by that service, maybe restrict it to a given address family etc. So the infrastructure to launch processes – even for users via systemd-run– is already there. run0 just goes one step further and implements an interface to request to start elevated (or rather with permissions different from their own) processes from a user’s shell.
Classic solutions do it like this:
user starts binary with setuid (let’s say sudo) that runs with root (because that’s the owner of the binary) privileges in their shell. Since this is a child process of their shell, it inherits all environment variables by default.
sudochecks /etc/sudoers if that user is authorized to perform the requested action and either denies the request, performs it or asks for authentication.
a new process is spawned from it, again inheriting the environment variables that were not cleaned, as you can’t get rid of variables by forking (this is often an issue if you have services that have their secrets configured via environment variables)
With run0:
user starts run0 binary as a user process. This process inherits the environment variables.
run0 forwards the user’s request via interface to the running systemd process (pid 1 I guess). That process however does not inherit any variables by default, since it was started outside the user’s shell.
systemd checks if the user who started the run0 binary is allowed to perform the requested operation and again, either denies the request, performs it or asks for authentication.
a new process is spawned from it, but it will only receive the environment variables that were explicitly requested as there’s no inheritance.
At least that’s my understanding, I haven’t looked too much into it or used it yet.
the pid1 part is wrong, only the systemd-init run in pid1, in it’s own process, own binary etc, it’s sole purpose is being an init system, after that it start the rest of the system, including the others systemd binaries
the rest is perfect thanks!, in the lennart he made a comparation with ssh were you “forward the commad to run as root”, i think it’s a good analogy
. run0 does it in a better way which I do not understand.
it does that in a “ssh like” that i read in the blog, they foward your commands, they don’t elevate your user, they also use polkit for security intead of sudoers
The original problem was to automagically prompt the user for password, if he tried to run some systemd executable without the wheel privileges. At some point they decided to reuse the code for [a command that allows you to run stuff as root] replacement because sudo is too bloated and vulnerable.
As it is running sudo with a long process is annoying missing and having to reenter my password or missing and the process timing out if I go afk to wait, I can’t imagine having to type my password every few moments when I run an upgrade. Surely this is not the pitch. This is already looking dead in the water if so, and god help me if I have to remember to type run0.
As someone who routinely installs new Laptops for various reasons:
Installing
Preinstalled Windows is unusable, due to preinstalled spyware
No torrents
No multiple versions
No real support for actually chaning the locale, what you download is what you get. Even if that means redownloading 5 GB for every language, even though the interesting parts are just a few language files, which every OS can also replace while running (Note: OSes, not spyware with a program loader strapped to it)
No live version
Unnecessarily complex/long installation (Locale settings being required two times, circumventing the M$ account with cmd, denying all spying stuff)
Installer does not have drivers for many things eg. some Touchpads, special storage setups etc.
Installing takes a long time overall
Removing bloat, with varying success (sometimes uninstalling Edge is one click, sometimes it requires powershell hacks) takes ages (my hand always hurts afterwards because removing one thing takes three clicks at different locations)
Installing stuff is extremely annoying, inconsistent and insecure (VLCPlus …)
Everyone loves hunting down 10 different obscure drivers from various websites, each with unique installers, right?
Windows fucks itself up within a few days with a non-insignificant chance … eg. by entering S-Mode (halfway) somehow
Usage
It may be in part due to me being used to a tiling WM with dozens of workspaces, but even with KDE I have much better workflow - somehow, Windows’ way to multitask is really strange to me, and I can only use it like a 70 year old with only 10% sight in one eye and 0% in the other: very slow and inefficiently
You can’t integrate anything with anything, except if you have dozens of accounts of services, some even with costs, and only use everything exactly like daddy manufacturer wants you to
Literally no support. Windows fucks itself up in so many ways, and the only “reliable” fix is a reinstall
Even with the dumbed down nature of Windows, users are morons. I’d rather teach my grandparents (including my very loud grandfather and said nearly-blind grandmother) Linux from scratch (yes, also LFS) than teach them the “correct way” to use Windows
Even when knowing how to use Windows properly, with all tricks applied, it’s less powerful than a pregnancy test running BASIC
Paying 250+$ to get served ads to pay even more, money and data, is obviously stupid
Windows is bad and immoral but I can’t say I hate it because I almost never use it. Most of the time Windows is just bad news in my feed which makes me anticipate friends asking beginner questions for their GNU+Linux install.
I stopped using Windows when it became clear it’s purpose is not to do what I want unless that happens to be what Microsoft wants. It was many things that all added up but I can only remember the last straw which broke the camel’s back. I was trying to get something to work and made an online account in desperation - then I struggled/failed to find a way to revert the change and make the user become an offline account again. Faced with a reinstall I couldn’t go through clicking “no, don’t fuck me” several times to reinstall Windows.
It’s been a long time since I used Windows myself, however one of the big reasons for switching was the inherent instability. At once point I was developing code in Visual Studio and constantly loading/closing quite a few different programs to test things out. Windows just didn’t seem to handle memory-recovery and I would have to reboot every week or two (usually because of the whole OS locking up). In comparison, I run a variety of software on my linux machines which can involve anything from testing code in multiple browsers to image editing to 3D CAD drawings. Sure that tends to drain the memory but when I close something I get that memory back. I’ll frequently get down to the last 100K of RAM, close a couple programs that may be holding large caches (Firefox really hates me having hundreds of open tabs), and then I’m right back up and running again. Reboots may occur about every 6 months.
I have to support other people using Windows at work, which reminds me how much I’ll never go back to it. My biggest frustration is that Microsoft is constantly changing things. Hell you can’t even directly reach the control panel any more, you have to run searches to find the specific item you want. Want to check the settings of a certain printer? Good luck, that doesn’t seem to be available in the right-click menu any more. It’s just all these idiotic changes making it difficult to actually use or maintain Windows. Why should I have to google how to find something when everything used to be under the control panel or a right-click away?
The hiding of the control panel is just extra pain for the fun of it. I know it’s the same tool they’ve had for many generations now so they’re hiding it because it’s ugly, but it’s the real way to get things done. Hiding it is just making everyone’s life harder, which is basically the Microsoft approach to OS design.
Kinda like dealing with Microsoft Office… You can’t find anything in that “new” toolbar design because so many options are grouped together in ways that don’t make any sense. I’m so glad I never had to actually use that garbage even though I did enjoy the older versions.
I honest to god find Linux easier to use. Though it’s maybe because the most used programs on my laptop are neovim, gcc and rust compiler and Firefox . And I shit you not, Microsoft purposefully slowed down the Firefox browser I installed from their store.
Plus I like using a tiling window manager when coding, now in Linux I have 500 options. On windows I get a middle finger and a dedicated nsa/fbi agent. Whats not to hate?
Maybe they are new users who miss Windows, so they are trying to find reasoning to stay on Linux. I as an old user have no more any special emotions about Windows. I play with it form time to time. But the OS is quite conservative because of its market monopoly and I don’t find anything new and interesting in new releases. It is not special about Windows, all consumer OSes are kinda stabilized now, and corporations do not want to experimenting and build new things.
So, I don’t hate Windows, I just don’t find it interesting for me. I use and will use it on a separate machine for some niche tasks, when they require windows-only software.
Windows has basically become malware. It does a fuck ton of tracking, and all of its features are about appeasing shareholders over users.
If we want to get technical: I loathe it because even in the year 2024, it’s the only operating system I’ve witnessed that will absolutely grind to a halt when a third party application stops responding or crashes. There is no valid fucking reason why the parent system should be halted by an application that crashes.
Also, ads in the start panel. Absolutely not, Microsoft. No way in hell am I allowing that to live on a computer I own. Yes, I’m aware third party apps will address that but it shouldn’t be a thing to begin with.
Oh yeah, and it decided to automatically update itself to the latest version on my ASUS ROG laptop while the thing was closed and not in use. So upon booting it up and seeing ads in the UI, I wiped the system clean and installed Nobara. Bye bye. 👋
I find Windows significantlyless convenient than Linux. It took a few years for my mindset to flip but there’s just no going back. Whenever something requires me to use Windows, I reach for a Windows virtual machine. Whenever I’ve been forced to use a Windows or a Mac machine for work, I’ve reached for a Linux virtual machine.
I think hate is really too strong of a word, dislike at most for me.
My biggest issue with Microsoft is a lack of trust. Apart from that, I just like my Linux setup more and find it easier to use.
Stuff I want to do works how I want to do it and how I’m (now) used to it.
Regardless, I use Windows at work, manage Windows Servers and Azure. It’s just how it is.
I will use it. I don’t care what others think. People can use su, sudo, doas, run0 by their choice, and I don’t see why we need a common opinion about it.
linux
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.