this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
33 points (94.6% liked)

Linux

48159 readers
1165 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hey there, Just wondering is Linux on an Android device (through UserLAnd or else) is as secure as Linux as the main OS.

Edit...Should say private not secure

Tanx much

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

There is no simple answer. Its is almost entirely dependent on implementation. All systems are vulnerable to things like supply chain attacks. We put a lot of trust in phone vendors, telcos and Google.

If you are going to compare to something like termux you need to compare with an equivalent sandboxed environment on regular linux, like a docker/podman container with appropriate permissions. As far as I know they use the same linux kernel features like cgroups and namespaces under the hood.

Traditionally Linux desktop apps run with the full permissions of the user and the X window system lets apps spy on each other which is less secure than Android sandboxing by design. There have been attempts to do better (eg flatpak/flatseal, wayland) but they are optional.