Security, Mint vs Puppy

[ericlindelldotnet]

I've read that the overriding simplicity of puppy linux makes it very secure regarding privacy and malware.
But I have also read that mint is much easier to learn.
Any opinions regarding the difference between these two distros for someone who needs an easy distro cuz i can't get anything complicated to work -- and someone who also needs to be mindful of security for a large amount of sensitive data,.
Thanks.

[Midnight True]

Hi and Welcome to the forum

To my knowledge Puppy Linux uses single user only and thus everything runs in root, a security issue for me. Unless your machine is a very old potato then Puppy Linux will definitely give it a second life. But if is not that old enough you can try Mint Cinnamon it is simple and intuitive but if you want more speed or your hardware is kinda old then perhaps try Xfce

Regarding Mint security please check this out https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... urity.html and viewtopic.php?p=2334665#p2334665

[Moem]

If you need or want something that is simple to use, then I suspect that Puppy will not cut it.
For more information on Puppy's unique security model, please see https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... make-sense

I've read that the overriding simplicity of puppy linux makes it very secure regarding privacy and malware.

Maybe you can tell us where you read that. Not all sources are good sources. It's also possible that the statement is true in certain contexts. So it would be good to see where it came from.

[Pjotr]

Puppy Linux uses single user only and thus everything runs in root, a security issue for me.

And for me. The "security model" (or rather: "lack-of-security-model") of Puppy is simply irresponsible. If not downright crazy. Actually a pity, because Puppy looks nice and is pretty fast (at least when I toyed with it, many years ago).

At the time, I remember reading that its creator said that running everything as root, was partly an homage to the valour of the very brave little dog of the creator that the distro was named after. Which struck me as so weird that I still remember that.

[English Invader]

I think Puppy was safer a few years back when you could run it on a non-writable format like a CD-R and just use it as a live distro. It was actually the first form of Linux I used when Microsoft dropped support for XP in 2014 and I had very old laptops that were incapable of running Windows 7 or the mainstream desktop Linux OSs. I kept XP offline and used Puppy for online tasks.

The last time I used Puppy was about five years ago when I was re-purposing an old PC with Windows 98 to run old PC games. Again, Puppy was a useful way to get the system online.

But, yes, I agree that the default root access is a fatal and nonsensical flaw that renders Puppy unsuitable as a desktop OS.

[Petermint]

Puppy and some other distributions were good when a big USB stick was 2 GB. You could create a recovery system in that space. Running as root for recovery is ok when you are as experienced and brilliant as me.

I found puppy and other distributions had inadequate documentation/support/forums leaving new users exposed to all sorts of mistakes. Not secure. Not for beginners.

Mint tends to screw up only with the default to LVM for some type of installs.

[Hoser Rob]

All Linux distros get their kernels and GNU wrapper bits from the same sources so they're almost all the same re security really. Puppy is an obvious exception. It's a special case in a number of ways.

For a beginner I'd recommend Mint or Ubuntu, nothing else unless you're talking about really old/weak hardware in which case I'd suggest ANtix. Antix isn't as beginner friendly as Ubuntu or Mint but miles ahead of puppy or other really light distros.

[t42]

unless you're talking about really old/weak hardware in which case I'd suggest ANtix. Antix isn't as beginner friendly as Ubuntu or Mint but miles ahead of puppy or other really light distros.

That's makes sense memory and CPU wise, considering IceWM window manager, SysVinit init and a selection of default applications:

Code: Select all

$ free -m
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           31461         413       30346           1         701       30683

In fact antiX is practically Debian oldstable, which allows access to enormous repositories and support documentation.

Code: Select all

$ cat /etc/os-r*
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="11"
VERSION="11 (bullseye)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bullseye
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"

And it can run efficiently on not very old hardware as well, for eg.

Code: Select all

sudo inxi -Fxxxza
System:
  Kernel: 6.1.42-antix.1-amd64-smp arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 10.2.1
  Desktop: IceWM v: 3.4.1 dm: slimski v: 1.5.0 Distro: antiX-22_x64-full
    Grup Yorum 18 October 2022 base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Gigabyte product: X570 AORUS PRO v: -CF serial: N/A
  Mobo: Gigabyte model: X570 AORUS PRO serial: N/A BIOS: American
    Megatrends LLC. v: F36c date: 05/12/2022
CPU:
  Info: model: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics socket: AM4 bits: 64
    type: MT MCP arch: Zen 3 gen: 4 level: v3 note: check built: 2021-22
    process: TSMC n7 (7nm) family: 0x19 (25) model-id: 0x50 (80) stepping: 0
    microcode: 0xA50000D
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 6 tpc: 2 threads: 12 smt: enabled cache:
    L1: 384 KiB desc: d-6x32 KiB; i-6x32 KiB L2: 3 MiB desc: 6x512 KiB
    L3: 16 MiB desc: 1x16 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1816 high: 3900 min/max: 1400/4464 boost: enabled
    base/boost: 3900/4450 scaling: driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: schedutil
    volts: 1.4 V ext-clock: 100 MHz cores: 1: 1400 2: 1400 3: 1400 4: 1400
    5: 3900 6: 1400 7: 1400 8: 3900 9: 1400 10: 1400 11: 1400 12: 1400
    bogomips: 93419
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via
    prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
    sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW,
    STIBP: always-on, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Cezanne vendor: Gigabyte driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: GCN-5
    code: Vega process: GF 14nm built: 2017-20 pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s
    lanes: 16 link-max: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s ports: active: HDMI-A-1
    empty: none bus-ID: 09:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:1638 class-ID: 0300 temp: 35.0 C
  Display: server: X.Org v: 1.20.11 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0.0
    screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.00x11.22")
    s-diag: 582mm (22.93")
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-A-0 model: EIZO NANAO EV2450
    serial: <filter> built: 2018 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 92 gamma: 1.2
    size: 528x297mm (20.79x11.69") diag: 606mm (23.9") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 1920x1080 min: 720x400
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.5 renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.49.0
    6.1.42-antix.1-amd64-smp LLVM 11.0.1) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Renoir Radeon High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 link-max: gen: 4
    speed: 16 GT/s bus-ID: 09:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:1637 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 link-max: gen: 4
    speed: 16 GT/s bus-ID: 09:00.6 chip-ID: 1022:15e3 class-ID: 0403
  Sound API: ALSA v: k6.1.42-antix.1-amd64-smp running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel I211 Gigabit Network vendor: Gigabyte driver: igb v: kernel
    pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 04:00.0
    chip-ID: 8086:1539 class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth1 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: MediaTek MT7612U 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wireless Adapter type: USB
    driver: mt76x2u bus-ID: 6-2:2 chip-ID: 0e8d:7612 class-ID: 0000
    serial: <filter>
  IF: wlan1 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.27 TiB used: 5.27 GiB (0.2%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:9 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 980 500GB
    size: 465.76 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s
    lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 3B4QFXO7 temp: 33.9 C scheme: GPT
  SMART: yes health: PASSED on: 84 hrs cycles: 890
    read-units: 3,170,236 [1.62 TB] written-units: 3,159,023 [1.61 TB]
  ID-2: /dev/nvme1n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 980 PRO 1TB
    size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 63.2 Gb/s
    lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 5B2QGXA7 temp: 32.9 C scheme: GPT
  SMART: yes health: PASSED on: 4d 17h cycles: 578
    read-units: 1,764,596 [903 GB] written-units: 2,549,453 [1.30 TB]
Info:
  Processes: 206 Uptime: 8m wakeups: 1 Memory: 30.72 GiB used: 791 MiB (2.5%)
  Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: service Compilers:
  gcc: 10.2.1 alt: 10 Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 1561 libs: 741
  tools: apt,apt-get,synaptic Shell: Bash (sudo) v: 5.1.4 running-in:  roxterm

[151tom]

Install and use OOTB.

https://easyos.org/

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64 ... 23/5.4.10/

[Pierre]

the Puppy series of Linux Systems
- Puppy
- Woof
- easyOS

amongst others, that were written by Barry Kauler - who also lives in an suburb, near to here, over in the west.

they are built for simplisty, rather than for security,
and at one stage, were even recommended for on-line banking, instead of using the venerable win-xp system.

you can achive the same thing, and some degree of security, as well.
if you used the Xfce DE on an LinuxMint System, instead.

[Hoser Rob]

antiX ... can run efficiently on not very old hardware as well...

Of course it can but it's too clunky for me to use unless I have to on a particular box. Seriously, it makes Xfce feel like KDE.

[151tom]

antiX ... can run efficiently on not very old hardware as well...

Of course it can but it's too clunky for me to use unless I have to on a particular box. Seriously, it makes Xfce feel like KDE.

That's funny. "it makes Xfce feel like KDE"
I like Xfce.
I don't care for KDE.

You're killing me Hoser Rob.

[Hoser Rob]

Well, KDE is the most refined desktop I've used, and Xfce feels like it's from the 90s, which it kind of is. It's a jalopy.

[151tom]

Well, KDE is the most refined desktop I've used, and Xfce feels like it's from the 90s, which it kind of is. It's a jalopy.

KDE is a nice DE what I don't care for in KDE is all of the many different ways to get to the same place just to many buttons and setting for me.

I like simple so WMs are great DEs for me.
I like the plain and simple no frills of Xfce.
I use Antix Linux and Puppy Linux and I like the Default WMs.
I don't mind jalopy's I drive a 1967 Ford F100 truck with 3 on the tree.

[Hoser Rob]

Well, KDE is the most refined desktop I've used, and Xfce feels like it's from the 90s, which it kind of is. It's a jalopy.

KDE is a nice DE what I don't care for in KDE is all of the many different ways to get to the same place just to many buttons and setting for me....

Yes, that's going to put off some. You wouldn't want to have a bad case of tweakitis.

It's not a problem for me, if I install a new version I just start using it. The defaults are mostly just fine, and if I find I don't like one of them there's almost always something in the System Settings GUI to change it. Personally I think it's nuts that Cinnamon has no built in redshift for example. That's the flip side of it

[ericlindelldotnet]

Thanks to all who responded to my question about puppy security. It must have been an old post that said puppy is secure. Clearly the consensus here among those who've tried both and others familiar with security protocols is that puppy sucks for security.
That's the clarity I needed, and I'll be sticking to Mint for a while.
Thanks again.
I hope this blanket thanks-to-all is acceptable etiquette as opposed to thanking each individually.

[Moem]

I, for one, am glad to know that you read the replies you received and that they were apparently helpful to you.

[vernie]

You're concerned of privacy and malware. You have a large amount of sensitive data. Is it necessary for you to expose/connect your system on the internet with that large amount of sensitive data? Are you transporting such data over the internet? If you are then encryption is a must all the time from storage to end to end communication and also on the other side where that data must go. It is best that a separate system behind firewalls or better a system not connected to any network must be the only thing that will hold that sensitive data and only those data that need to come out in an encrypted manner will need to go to a system that is connected to the internet. How far you need to implement security is how badly you need to protect everything. If you think you can be a target, these operating systems like puppy linux and Linux Mint is not enough, one have to learn a lot on top of these systems as it is you the user who is the most vulnerable and not these systems.

I've read that the overriding simplicity of puppy linux makes it very secure regarding privacy and malware.
But I have also read that mint is much easier to learn.
Any opinions regarding the difference between these two distros for someone who needs an easy distro cuz i can't get anything complicated to work -- and someone who also needs to be mindful of security for a large amount of sensitive data,.
Thanks.