[OT Security PSA] Shellshock: Update your bash, now!

[Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 10/05/2014 04:54 AM, eles wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 11:12:12 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
>> On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 07:43:54 UTC, eles wrote:
>>> update-manager -d
>>>
>>> It works.
>>
>> Does it perform package upgrade? The comments are rather scary:
>> ---
>> Hi, I have installed Linux mint 15 with Mint4Win as Dual boot with
>> Windows 7.
>> Then upgraded it to Mint 16 and it was running fine.
>> But when I upgrade to Mint 17 (Qiana), after restarting the partition
>> loop0 (or loopback0 or something like that) fails to load.
>> It shows an error like, Press I to ignore, S to skip or M for manual
>> recovery.
>
> Hi,
>
> A bit of news here, as just updated my knoledge about Linux Mint & Linux
> Mint Debian Edition.
>
> In short, from this discussion and its comments:
>
> http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2014/08/upcoming-lmde-2-to-be-named-betsy/
>
> Linux Mint Debian abandons its (semi-)rolling model and will basically
> become just a kind of Ubuntu, but based on Debian Stable (Ubuntu, AFAIK,
> is based on Debian Unstable). The will require full-upgrades every 2
> years, but the upgrades shall be smooth (no reinstall required). For two
> years, you will not need to do such upgrade, just the basic security
> upgrades and some updates (mainly browser and email clients).
>
> Linux Mint, starting from version 17, marks a departure from previous
> releases (this is why you migh have encountered difficulties in
> upgrading) by keeping the same code base (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS) for the next
> 5 years. So, during this time, it will basically be a
> rolling-distribution, as some software will get updated just as regular
> (security fixes etc.) happens. Probably, after those 5 years, they will
> change the code base to the next Ubuntu LTS, which will start a new
> 5-years long upgrade.
>

Very interesting. This is pretty major news for Mint. Not sure how I 
feel about it, but it's certainly worth knowing. Glad you posted.

> One piece of advice: Debian Testing might seem (by the name) more secure
> than Debian Unstable. The truth is that the latter is more up-to-date
> and receives security fixes first (they are entering the Debian Unstable
> first, then they are pre-validated before going in Debian Testing).
> More, Debian Unstable is not as unstable as its name might tell but,
> yes, it requires you messing sometimes (read: maybe once every three
> months) with the apt-get and vim. But is not such a big deal.

When I got a new laptop a few weeks ago to stick linux on (yay!), and 
was deciding on distro, I did read that thing about Deb unstable getting 
security updates slightly earlier than Deb testing.

Personally, I ended up opting for Deb testing anyway because the 
"cooldown period" of a few days (for non-security releases) was very 
appealing to me. Sort of a minor little mini-guardrail between me and 
the bleeding edge. Y'know - just in case. And TBH, as big a deal as 
security is, I'm even more concerned about system instability anyway 
(not that I don't trust Deb "unstable" to still be reasonably stable, 
I'm sure it is). But that's just me.

Anyway, since Deb testing does apparently still have a "fast track" for 
major security fixes (via umm..."testing-updates" IIRC), even if it 
isn't *as* prompt as Deb unstable, that pretty much clinched the deal 
for me ;).

FWIW.

It's my first experience with rolling-release, so we'll see how it goes, 
but so far so good.

So far the biggest irritation is just simply the lack of TortoiseGit and 
*good* integration between BeyondCompare and Dolphin. But of course, 
that has nothing to do with choosing deb testing ;) A few other rough 
edges (to be expected), but man am I loving a lot of things about 
finally jumping to linux as a primary system after a full 20 *mostly* 
good years of windows. (Aside from a couple admittedly great, but minor, 
improvements - Win 8/8.1 is *HORRID*. And that's not even the one that 
finally pushed me away anyway - two years of Win7 and I was "Ok, that's 
freaking it, I NEED day-to-day linux now, fuck the new post-XP MS, can't 
take anymore of this goofy straightjacketed Apple-wannabe crap.")

Wow, sorry for the rambling, didn't really mean to venture so far with 
all that ;)

Anyway, yea. Linux distros. Lots of info about them :)