Re: [tlug] Auto-detect (Was Option City)

[Josh Glover <tlug@example.com>]

Quoth Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon (Mon 2004-04-19 09:02:12AM +0900):

> This brings up an interesting question for me - how radically different 
> are the different distros?

Very, in some cases. Debian and Gentoo are pretty close, in fact Gentoo
uses a lot of the Debian tools. Red Hat and Mandrake are somewhat related
in that Mandrake is kind of a Red Hat fork. But each distro typically has
its own way of doing things, and that can be quite annoying.

I have always tried, when working with various Unices, to use the most
generic techniques that I could, techniques which should work on any Unix.
One of my biggest complaints with Slowaris (sorry) is that Sun traps you
into a certain way of doing things with is not quite portable.

Relying on GUI config tools is even worse, it you want knowledge gained on
one Unix (hell, one distro) to "port" to others.

> With SuSE, right from the start (immediately 
> following the install I mean), it auto-detects USB devices and - as you 
> put it "...deal[s] with the JPGs on the flash memory just like any other 
> files on any other file system."

Add configuring automount to my list and there you have it.

> I take it from your tips (thank you, 
> I'll file that and it may come in useful at some point), that your 
> distro didn't auto-detect and didn't deal with .jpg files without the 
> changes.

I use Gentoo, which has the policy of installing only what you need. I
compile my own kernels, which exempts me from the everything-and-the-
kitchen-sink (e.g. emacs) kernels that most distros (Gentoo included)
provide for the users who want things to Just Work. This approach requires
that I spend the time to set things up. The advantage to this is that I
know exactly how to get a digital camera connected to *any* Linux box.
And verily, this is the Unix Way.

> I realize that over-automation is one of the more dangerous 
> aspects to the buggy software from a certain illegal mainstream software 
> company, but how about with SuSE - does the extra automation offered 
> "out of the box" cause security issues?

Not really, at least in this case. If an attacker gains physical access
to your machine (as he would need to in order to "exploit" automounting),
you are screwed anyway.

I don't really know how good a job SuSE does of being secure out of the
box. Gentoo does a great job, as no net-facing daemons run unless you
explicitly turn them on.

-- 
Josh Glover

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