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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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How come Windows and macOS users don't have to enter their password every time they need administrator privileges? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Isn't it enough to just enter your password once to login, then receive a warning whenever you're about to do something potentially dangerous?

If it's such a big security risk, how come the most popular and widely used operating systems in the world and their users seem to be unaffected by it?

I guarantee, most new users coming to Linux from Windows/macOS are going to laugh and look at you funny if you try to justify entering your password again and again and again.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

NT (and therefore all Windows versions today) always had multi-user security. It's essentially a ported version of DEC Alpha.

On install, the first user is admin, just like the first Linux account is root, or else you wouldn't be able configure the machine.

Windows architecture built on DOS (3.x, 95,etc) lacked any such security, and was developed as a single-user OS (goes back to DOS86).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yeah, and NT was pretty much just a corporate and government thing throughout the 90s. It wasn't until XP that home users got it on the desktop, and even then, the first user created automatically had all admin rights, because people were still used to the Win9x/DOS way of doing things. Separation of different accounts with different privilege levels wasn't a widespread practice up until maybe Windows Vista.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

NT (and therefore all Windows versions today) always had multi-user security. It’s essentially a ported version of DEC Alpha.

DEC Alpha is a hardware not a software.
I know that WinNT had multi-user capabilities, but I've simplified for conversation.