Opinion: Wasn't 2025 the year it happened? Yes. No. Answers on a Christmas card

As Torvalds pointed out in 2019, is that while some major hardware vendors do sell Linux PCs – Dell, for example, with Ubuntu – none of them make it easy. There are also great specialist Linux PC vendors, such as System76, Germany’s TUXEDO Computers, and the UK-based Star Labs, but they tend to market to people who are already into Linux, not disgruntled Windows users. No, one big reason why Linux hasn’t taken off is that there are no major PC OEMs strongly backing it. To Torvalds, Chromebooks “are the path toward the desktop.”

  • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    1·
    4 hours ago

    MS has nothing to do with it, except that BitLocker is much better than anything any Linux distro has to offer today.

    It’s a piece of software with closed source code. I am aware that people can hide (and have done so many times) a backdoor or a mistake in source code so that it’ll be harder to find than many problems in binaries without source provided.

    Still harder to audit.

    You need to have the disk decrypt without user input, and you can’t have the secret with the user. (As the user is untrusted - could be someone stealing the laptop.) The normal Linux user mantra of ”I own the machine” does not apply here. In this threat model, the corporation owns the machine, and in particular any information on it.

    Smart cards?

    Hate RHEL all you want, but first take a look at what distros have any kind of commercial support at all from software vendors. This is the complete list: RHEL, sometimes Rocky, sometimes Ubuntu.

    I know.

    Basically, corporate requirements go completely against the requirements of enthusiasts and power users. You don’t need Secure Boot to protect your machine from thieves, but a corporation needs Secure Boot to protect the machine from you.

    Sigh. Okay.

    • enumerator4829@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Look, I’m not saying BitLocker isn’t flawed. I’n m saying the alternatives on Linux are shit. All the primitives are there, and you can do it on Linux, with lots of work, testing and QC of all software updates on all your hardware (or else you’ll do manual entry of disaster recovery keys for the next decade). But on Windows it’s a checkbox to encrypt the entire fleet, along with management of recovery keys.

      Also, on audits: for people doing checkbox security (i.e. most regulated industries), this is very easy to audit. You just smack in ”Bitlocker” and you are done. For some, the threat isn’t really information loss, it’s loss of compliance (and therefore revenue). Stupid, but here we are. If you mean actual security, then you are probably correct.

      A smart cart only authenticates and identifies the user - it can’t do attestation of the boot chain. If we use a smart card for disk encryption, a malicious or compromised user can just pop out the SSD, mount and decrypt (using the smart card) on a separate machine and extract/modify data without a trace. If you use SB, the TPM and disk encryption as intended, you can trust both the user (via smart card) and the machine (probably via a Kerberos machine key). Basically, this method prevents the user from accessing or modifying data on their own machine.

      Again, on Windows this is basic shit any Windows sysadmin can roll out easily following a youtube tutorial or something. Providing those same security controls on Linux will yield a world of pain.

      We really need to make this easy on Linux. systemd-boot and UKIs are trying, but are not even close to enough.